


Don't You Believe You Could Be Loved?

by Roski



Series: Epsilon [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Angst and Romance, Epsilon!A.W., Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, High School, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Nesting, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega!Milo, Pheromones, Scent Marking, Small Towns, Teen Pregnancy, Teenage Parents, milo's dad is an ass, they make bad decisions and learn, they've got a supportive friend/pack, theyre stressed and trying their best honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:42:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 20
Words: 49,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roski/pseuds/Roski
Summary: Stuck in a small town with antiquated ideals, Milo McCoy is determined not to let his father's perception of his Omega dynamic determine his path. Cause he sure as hell isn't going to get mated off at sixteen to some bigoted Alpha his father chooses like some backwoods clan. He's not sure what he wants, but when an old friend returns to the scene, his course of action becomes more convoluted than ever, and maybe better than ever.
Relationships: Milo McCoy/A.W. Gibbs
Series: Epsilon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1812382
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1. Friends?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not gonna go into a whole lot of world building for y'all, but in this story, we have the three main dynamics: Alpha, Beta, and Omega. Alphas and Omegas work the same as a lot of stories or hcs you might see. In this story, Betas aren't 'just like regular people'. They're the middle people, but can try and challenge an alpha, have a better sense of smell than the other dynamics, and have some pretty big premolar chompers. This is also a world where less popular dynamics also make up a tiny fraction of the population like Delta or, most prominently, Epsilon.  
> In this story, Epsilons are regarded as a chaotic loner-type dynamic and this often gives these individuals a bad rep. They're a dominant dynamic, meaning they can challenge an Alpha or a Beta, but hierarchically (is that a word?) they're between them. Epsilons have the big premolars and the good sense of smell like the Beta, but the tendencies and sometimes behaviors of the Alpha.

I hadn’t thought there were dynamics outside of Alphas, Betas, and Omegas when I was younger. That was before I came to Punxsutawney from the deep south in the fifth grade. Before I could notice it with my own powers of scent deduction, I picked up on it from how differently the kids in my grade– and even above and below– treated this one kid. There were a couple of different reactions I noticed that were obvious: aggression, by groups of Alphas pushing him around on the playground, by their Beta supporters, and by frightened Omegas in their own little corners of the playground. Pity, by Beta teachers, by perpetually teary-eyed Omegas, though they never really had a long enough conversation with him or sought him out to know him. That was my fault, really, but it began our friendship in a roundabout way. 

“Milo, no, you mustn’t!” Hannah exclaimed, grabbing at my sweater sleeve like we all did for each other. 

“What? He looks lonely– He’s the only one I don’t know in this too-tiny school.”

“He’s a hybrid, and it shows. He doesn’t know how to act.” 

I ripped my sleeve from her hands much to Fred’s surprise, covering his hands with his mouth. “So you think he’s liable to jump at me, huh? I’m big, I can–”

“You’re not!” Fred practically wailed.

I shot him a death glare before puffing out another breath, fixing my collar. My father had drilled it into me that I needed to be as presentable as could be when meeting someone new because I never knew what kind of place they could have in my life. Grumbling, Hannah, got the back for me, snapping at Fred’s Alpha brother, Pace, as he came around, on edge as it was. 

Without a word of goodbye, I crossed from the little Omega hub behind the swings between the bushes, fists clenched tight as I walked through where Alphas tackled each other, Omegas pretended to play house with willing Betas, and all manor of havoc went down. 

His name was A.W. He was an Epsilon– something not a Beta and not an Alpha. He was in my Social Studies class and seemed to get along fine with Beaver, a Beta boy, though Beaver never stuck around after. And he was sitting all alone on the far side of the concrete basketball court, behind the corner facing the playground so the ball wouldn’t hit him, back up against cold stone playing his nintendo. I had one in blue. His was in red. 

“Hi, there. I’m Milo. Got here about a week and a half ago. You’re A.W. right?” 

He looked up, watching me with inquisitive brackish-blue eyes: not quite blue, but definitely not hazel. “That’s me.”

I nodded, folding my hands behind my back, shoulders straightening. “You wanna come play with us? We were playing Rodeo.”

He scowled, and I grew uncomfortable, a pang of it passing through me as I picked up on the ambivalence of his scents, the correct term for it. He was concrete after a rainstorm, honeyed smoke, and the porch furniture you haven’t seen since the end of last summer. “What’s that?”

“We used to go to the rodeo every year, see? My family and me. It’s a livestock show and cowboys and cowgirls compete–”

“Omegas, competing?” he asked, cocking his head, and from the tiny smile I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or making an innocent joke.

I guess my face showed my indecision and weirded-outness, because he cut right to the chase. “You talk funnily, you know that? Is that something you picked up from the rodeo? Does your entire family talk like that?”

According to accounts, I was beet red when I launched myself at him. He blocked with his arms, probably very used to it, but he didn’t catch my second swing that cracked into his collarbone. Before I knew it, we were grappling, knees scuffing on the ground, and the whistle was being blown, people– kids first– dragging us apart. Cause I was the new kid. Because they weren’t sure I could win. But I had a split lip, and he a bleeding nose as we were ushered inside by Mrs. Perkins, an arm around me as my first upset tears fell, a hand gripping the back of A.W.’s jacket. 

As we waited in silence at the nurse’s, being lectured, I kept rubbing at my tears, and got animal crackers because of it. A.W.’s eyes looked strangely blank. He’d heard this spiel far too many times. 

“Alistair, you can’t keep fighting like this– What will your parents think? It might end up making you be asked to leave,” Mrs. Perkins admonished, looking about ready to pull her graying hair out.

I sniffled, rubbing my nose on my sweater sleeve, “But I started it.” She looked at me like I was crazy. A.W. almost the same. “I jumped at him because he told me– I talked funny.” She gave him another hard look, but my guilt just wasn’t leaving my stomach, making more tears spill out as the nurse wrapped an arm around my shoulders, crooning quietly, sending out calming pheromones. “I didn’t think he meant it as a joke– It’s–” I got passed a tissue, my back patted, and another tissue pressed up to my nose, but I didn’t want to be coddled; I wanted to speak. “It’s my fault. Don’t kick him out.”

Mrs. Perkins was still giving me that look, and Nurse Fran was standing away from me. In a more calm voice, she told us, “I’d like to see you two make up, now. One compliment, from each of you.”

Well I sure knew I wasn’t going first. Not after all that embarrassing spiel. I was angry at my own tears– this never would have happened if I’d been an Alpha. 

A.W. began when prompted, “You… You don’t talk so funnily I can’t understand you. And if that’s not good enough,” he took a quick breath. “You seem friendly.”

“I tried!” I crowed, biting the inside of my cheek. “I like that game you were playing.”

“Milo, that’s not  _ him. _ ”

“You have nice eyes. There.”

“Milo, don’t you have a nintendo as well,” Mrs. Perkins asked gently. My eyes lit up. I shot to look at A.W. 

It was slow going, but after the second round of sharing on his device, Mario Kart, we fell into familiar rhythms, and I got to tell my mother who I’d met that day, and told her I was going to take my nintendo the next day to play properly with A.W.

My Omega friends would hug me tight every morning before I’d go to play with him, like they didn’t think I’d be the same when I came back, and maybe I wasn’t in that time I was with him, drinking up the light sarcasm from him, returning back tongue-lashings with fervor, creating our own jokes, our own humor, everything I couldn’t get when Omegas got in a group instead of it being one on one. 

After our fight, he was hesitant to play physically with me, treating me as if I was something delicate not to be touched until I called him out on it and we got to play Ninja just like other friends would, slaps and chops stinging and sometimes leaving bruises.

My father would constantly ask why I couldn’t just play house with some of the other Omegas when I had to explain how I got bruises on my forearms. I thought it would make him happy, proud even, that I hit hard enough to leave bruises on my Epsilon’s thicker skin. It did not in the slightest, and my mother had to quietly collect me and shepherd me away from his mood she was so used to skirting around. My sister Cat was the only one that seemed remotely cool with my new best friend, though she did scent my clothes before I went to school more often than not. 

We were in Social Studies playing a game of hangman that was quickly turning as disgusting as the minds of young preteens could get as we snickered over the things we scribbled out when the break came and we were free to line up with the rest of our class to file out to lunch. Generally, Omegas got to go in the front because of the Alphas and Betas trying to show off their manners. I, however, was between Betas and him, and he between me and the Alphas. A surprise waited for us in the cafeteria, sweet, but turning sour quickly. It was Linus’s birthday, and his maternal father had brought his son cupcakes to share with the grade.

A.W. was raring to go, though many little Omegas were timidly picking their way up there, hand in hand, tittering about what color of frosting to get until they began fighting over it and our collective calming pheromones went off. Since A.W. was so close to me, mine affected him as did the whole air in the room, and it was a nice thing that I could relax my mostly isolated friend, I thought. 

We went up together, and he showed a sweeter side people told me he didn’t have, but one that I was familiar with, as he let me have the cupcake he was reaching for because we both wanted to get the red Power Ranger ring on top. He took green instead.

It came back to bite, though when Dillon decided he wanted the My Little Pony ring instead of his blue Power Ranger ring, which got slid between us without commitment to either one of us. 

A.W. snatched it up, taunting, “I scented it it’s mine,” as he, indeed, did scent the tiny thing, or… tried?

Like that would stop me. Surprising him, I took it anyways, slipping it onto my hand, sticking my tongue out at him as I slid him the red one I no longer wanted. He was staring so hard I thought I might burst under the pressure, a different kind of alpha dominance coming from him. Just… different. All he did was sigh as he looked away, sliding back the green one to me. “Might as well have that one, too.”

I put it on my other hand. 

I think that was when I figured out my favorite color was green. 

“We can share,” I affirmed with him, nodding.

“I don’t want to share,” he replied, a growing half smile on his face, teasing. 

But someone got the wrong idea. It must have been how close our scents were because of the ring, but Henry suddenly rose up from behind A.W. asking me, “Is this dude giving you issues, Milo? He’s not sharing?”

A.W. had gone tense. Not scared. Just… ready. And it took me a moment to get over that to reply, “It’s none of your business. I got what I want.” I showed off my rings proudly, and before I knew it, an Alpha and a Beta were giving me theirs, too, so by the end of the day, if I asked nicely to borrow A.W.’s ring, I had five: one for each finger.

It shouldn’t have worried me, but it always did when we had to lapse into silence because he would not speak and I wasn’t a big talker in the first place. As the months had progressed, he’d opened up out of his shell, and I’d happily listen as I did my work or ate my lunch. I didn’t like it when we were quiet together here at school.

My sister would remind me when my mother went to bed early every night that I was not his parent, and I shouldn’t worry as much as I did. But there were some times I just wanted to drag him into my nest and tell him there was nothing wrong with him in the slightest, even if his dynamic was rare. Like when the Alphas ganged up on him and he got blamed for it. I didn’t have words for him when he’d blot his scratches with tissues instead of going to the nurse, when he’d trace over growing lumps on his jaw or cheek to see how much they’d swell. All I could do was be there and comfort him with scent as best I could, and even then I felt like a lousy Omega. It got to the point that once, when he was at the nurse for a black eye late in the year, I pulled Hannah down there with me to help me make an emergency nest out of school jackets and the supplies the nurse had on hand, hoping it would make him feel better. And when he smiled at me with tear-swollen eyes, I knew I’d done good. 


	2. Growing Together

It was summer before I got to have him over for a playdate. My father insisted that it would be at our house, and I guessed as to why (my friend’s ‘untrustworthy’ dynamic), and could only roll my eyes. That little action earned me a rebuke that made my eyes smart and my mother come out of the woodwork to draw me away from my Alpha father’s paralyzing anger. Our houses weren’t too far from each other, so he walked, and I waited by the front for about an hour before I knew he’d come, throwing open the door the moment after he knocked, dragging him inside, though he was timid here.

My mother, thankfully, was the first of my family to greet him as I tugged him into the kitchen, telling her bluntly, “This is him.”

“Hi, Mrs. McCoy. My moms sent this.” He presented a tin of cookies that she took with a tutting sound and a complimentary, ‘They shouldn’t have.’

Looking at the two of them there, I realized that he was as tall as my mother. And this did not sit so well. Sure, there were Alphas taller than him, even two Betas, but still– all this translated to in my middle-schooler brain was that I needed to grow taller.

My sister swung down the stairs, a more formidable presence for A.W., her purse over her shoulder, ready to go out with her friends herself. “So, it’s A.W. isn’t it?”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Y’all don’t trash the upstairs, you hear?” she said, pointed to me.

“Yeah, sure,  _ bye. _ ”

I could smell my father approaching. I quickly dragged A.W. up the stairs to the background of him hollering, “Door  _ open, _ Milo.”

“So,” I asked A.W. as I vaulted up over the railing, “Does my family talk like me?”

He offered a sheepish grin in response to our fight at the beginning of last year. “Yeah.”

I brought him down the small hall past my sister’s room and the bathroom, pointing it out to him before coming to my room, squeezing in past him in a hurry. “This is my room.” I went to my closet, showing him part of my nest, “This is a nest I’ve been working on for about a week. The old one on the bed had to be washed because my father was in here.”

“Looks cozy. I’ll try not to get too close.”

I cocked my head. “Why?”

“Well, Omegas and their nests, right? And you just said because of your dad–”

“Yeah…” I didn’t have the words again. “But you’re fine.” Those words would just have to do, then. He nodded with a growing smile. I cut across the room. “If I don’t do it downstairs, I do homework here next to the window.”

We watched videos and played video games and watched videos about video games and ate the salsa my mom had made until evening came and it was cool enough for me to play outside more comfortably. We had a small backyard, but it worked for kicking a soccer ball around and getting grass stains into our clothes. 

Mom had to hose our legs off before we could come back into the house for dinner: Spaghetti and meatsauce. I got to brag that I’d helped her make the sauce, and A.W. complimented us nicely. I almost wish I hadn’t said that because my father came in late to hear it, and I could tell he was pleased about the stereotypical Omega homemaker model I’d just bragged about. 

My mother, tired as she was– though I did not notice it until I was older– guided the conversation away from my strong disappointment that bewildered my friend. “So, A.W., Milo tells us you and your family came from Pittsburgh. It must have been a big change to go from a big city to our sleepy little town.”

I was proud watching him answer, “It really was. My old school had about two hundred per class, but here, it’s a little over fifty, isn’t it? I like how I can walk more places, though, like the store and here.”

I liked listening to them talk to each other as I ate quietly, looking back and forth, nodding and humming when applicable. It was nice to have some of my favorite people finally meeting. 

“A.W. what are your parents like? Perhaps we could have them over, too some time,” my father asked, deceptively charming. I’d learned from an early age it was not often good when he opened his mouth.

“Dynamic-wise or personality?” A.W. asked carefully, twirling some pasta absentmindedly.

“Oh, both.”

“Well one of my moms is a female Beta, and the other a female Alpha. My grandmother ended up retiring close to here, so we visit her a lot. They like card games a bit too much. Maybe they get it from my Grandma.”

I got to see all three of them three days later, and I brought my own gift, too nervous for my own good. I’d been conflicted on what to wear, how to act– My father had suggested a little too strongly that I wear the skort I’d practically been forced into buying. Instead, I was in shorts and a t-shirt, but now I wondered if that wasn’t going to be any good–

All my fears were alleviated when A.W. opened the door with a curious, “What’s that?” as he peeked down into my gift bag. 

“Dude, it’s for your moms– and siblings if they’re here.”

He made a face. “Oh, they’re here alright.”

I first met his Beta mom, and instantly felt better about my outfit choice– we matched in style it seemed, and then his Alpha mom, who was a cop, and it made me want to call her Officer Gibbs just because of how cop-like it sounded. I could very much imagine her with her long, curled blonde hair in a bun eating a donut on her way out the door to her trooper car.

His big sister still lived at home, and was an Omega, which was another thing that made me feel more at ease, but his big brother was an Alpha and much taller than A.W. so I stuck close to him until I could give my gift of some hand balm my mother had made on one of her mangy days where she couldn’t seem to do enough. 

Funnily enough, his room was downstairs, and I could hear his parents talking in the living room about his mom’s work schedule seeing as the door was open. Of course. Because we were different dynamics. It wasn’t something I was too aware of consciously anymore, but technically, he was akin to an Alpha, though he had Beta characteristics like the sharp premolars.

His room smelled all too like him, and though it was nearly overpowering, there was something happy in me that recognized it as friendly and safe.

He showed me his newest game and then the backyard, going out his open window. 

He jumped out of it no problem, and tried to help me down, but I slapped him off, assuring him, “I got this, bro.”

And I did. 

His house backed up to the woods, or, more accurately, a plain, and then the woods, and it seemed inviting in the summer.

Everything was inviting that summer.

I was perfectly happy to be back inside, though, sitting on his bed as he tried to find what he next wanted to show me, going on about the last episode of some cop show he’d seen and how it was so much more action-packed than what his mom did. 

Sixth grade came before we knew it and the two of us were as thick as thieves, nearly always together except when using the bathroom thanks to our class rosters that had us together in every class, which did prove to be an issue for some teachers. 

This year, I tried to quietly integrate him in with people I liked: Hannah, Linus, Matthew and those people. They were friendly. None seemed to stick just yet, but I was so sure if they got to know him like I did, he’d be counting so many more friends. Sixth grade was also the year of my first heat– I thought I’d been prepared. I hadn’t.

The week before it hit, I was too cuddly with my Omega friends, even daring to stick closer to A.W. despite the flack we were bound to get. He was just a little bit distressed, sensing something was happening. Things got to me so much more easily. I snapped at lesser known Alphas even coming near me. I glared at Betas trying to pick up on my scent; I knew it was getting sweeter, but at that point, I did not know why. A.W. was on my side with this, just as hostile towards people I did not want near me. I even bawled like a baby that Friday about an imagined side eye from a teacher. I think it surprised people. I think it disgusted certain ones. But he comforted me well when the tears hit at the end of the Geography elective, holding my hand on the desk, hoarding the tissue box close to us, blocking people off with his arms on the desk, going as far as to rest an arm around my chair after daring to give me a quick hug. 

I remember I wanted him to keep hugging me. Awfully.

Hannah was the first Omega who dared approach, but soon I was surrounded by the calming scent of Omegas comforting someone, even if they were just looking over sympathetically as they rearranged their books in their cubby. A.W. being there kept Alphas away, though I heard croons cut off in throats. There was one croon in particular, one right next to me, that of my best friend, though he was just as confused and unsettled as I was at this point. He cut it off, and his eyes went down, as if he was looking at his throat. He later told me that he’d never done that before, that that had never happened before.

When I got home, I went to my mother and sister immediately, told them how weird I was feeling. 

My mother scented me gently to begin calming me down, and my sister looked on worriedly, itching to do something to help. 

In the end, there was nothing anybody could do to help when it hit that Sunday evening, and I crawled into my nest I’d moved to just beneath my window, relishing the cold aura coming from it against my heat-addled skin. Looking back on it, it was a tame one.

Halfway through, my mother presented me with my very own bottle of suppressants that the pharmacy had finally come up with for me. For when I could not afford to take a week off. 

That week was the one that finally sent my father over the edge with all his talk of finding mates. At last, getting options lined up. And the way he talked about it made me never want to have a mate.

I was a celebrity among the Omegas when I got back to school the next week, but it was A.W. who was the most glad to see me, looking me over, spinning me around as if to make sure I really was alright as he drank in the scent that told him I really was fine. I think we were too excited to see each other– after all, I hadn’t exactly been in a state to talk to others besides my family– but when we hugged, it went slightly wrong. I could feel his neck on mine as I pulled back down off my toes, and my skin shivered along my scent gland there.

For some reason, today it was the Betas that wanted nothing to do with me because of this accidental scenting. I tried to play it off like it was no big deal. After all, I scented with my family. And he was my best friend. So– like, same thing, right?

No. Not to anyone else. Not even to us. Not directly on the neck like that.

Still, it was something I couldn’t help thinking about, and something A.W. couldn’t shut up about when we were alone, apologizing and rationalizing it away. 

It was at the end of the year that we had our first sleepover because he was set to move. It hurt to even think about, so my mother and his moms pulled a few strings and somehow he managed to be on our carpeted living room floor in a massive nest beside me and Linus and Ronnie and Hannah, Beta, Omega, Omega. Except they were all asleep. I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to stay awake and enjoy having my best friend still living in the same town as me for as long as possible.

Sleep-drunk and bleary-eyed, the jokes we cracked were borderline incoherent until he said, “Milo, do you remember when we met?”

“Of course, dumbass, I punched you!”

He snickered. “Well, yeah.” Then he sighed and turned his head my way. “It’s been years now, and I’ve got to tell you: That country accent of yours has got to be one of the most comforting things I’ll ever hear.”

My insides went soft. I was daring. I reached for his hand, his always warm hand. “I’m gonna miss you, man.”

“Me, too, buddy.”

And so what if our friends found us sidled up next to each other in the morning? It didn’t matter one tick if he was leaving in a month. 

I did not realize at the time that his Beta mom’s work was simply a cover up for the real reason for moving: him. After four good years, they’d decided this was not the place for him.

I knew they loved him, but the way he spoke about the decisions they were making with him in mind made it seem like they thought of him as their family’s burden. And perhaps that was why we had gotten along so well: The Epsilon who was made up of stereotypes to anyone looking from the outside, and the Omega determined not to be trapped under his. 

I supposed it was just the distance between us, but we texted less and less frequently as school started the next year, and by Christmas, he was gone.


	3. Of Course That Was You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> guys don't smoke plz. thank.

I grew up– though I did not grow  _ much _ thanks to my Omegan genes.

I was fighting my father for the right to go to college just like my sister– even just community college. He thought I should settle down, find a mate, but when I told him to get him off my back cause there was no one at school or in this Godforsaken town, it did not stop him.

He left printed profiles of an Alpha dating site at my place at the breakfast table some mornings. 

It was one of those mornings I dumped the file into the trash yet again when my mother looked me up and down, sucking her teeth. “Don’t let your father see you in that.”

It was a sweater and a flannel. “I have jewelry,” I joked, holding up my wrist: black beads and leather. It was a concession I was happy to make, seeing as I kept my more feminine things to myself. I had to work hard in this house to make sure I wasn’t overwhelmed by his wishes. She scented me quickly before sending me on my way to school. She did not work anymore. I didn’t know what she did anymore besides sip tea and look out the window. 

It was only September still, so things hadn’t picked up academically-wise. 

High school was a constant mess of pheromones and scents, but as long as I could pick out my friends, I’d be fine. I saw Abby near the front, and the Alpha came over. She knew not to try and help me with my bag or treat me how the Blossoms wanted to be treated– certain Omegas that exemplified– exploited– demureness. “Hey, Milo, guess what? There’s a new guy.”

“Huh?” 

She walked with me into the halls, and we picked up Matthew on the way. “I know– This is such a small town no one would think we’d have transfers.” 

“Did he come from St. Rose’s or what?” I asked.

“No, he’s not a Beta. Or at least I don’t think he is.”

That should have tipped me off right there, but it didn’t. Instead, it was all the way after school when I was gearing up to get to lacrosse practice that I noticed the stranger, his scent coming from across the field where he was, mixing with that of my teammates Sleighton, Braxton, and Diana. The scent of Sleighton’s pine was something that was dangerous to everyone but him. 

I heard from afar, “So, how was a bigger city? Did they  _ accept you _ , snowflake?”

Suddenly the scent of a sidewalk being drenched filled my senses, overwhelming and chalky and thick in the air.

I was hesitant in approaching. Diana was up in there with the Alphas though.

“Would it have been too much to hope you would have forgotten about me?” I heard, a definite edge to the voice.

“Freaks of nature don’t happen in Punxsutawney everyday!” Braxton crowed, hands on his hips. 

I stopped in my tracks, nearly dropping my bag as the fight broke out, Diana scampering to the side, watching anxiously, and though my first instinct was to go to comfort her, omega to omega, I approached the brawl cautiously.

Sleighton and Braxton were ganging up on a guy as tall as them with a black cap on– the scent of that wet concrete was coming from him– snarling and shouting.

Upset, I released all those pheromones at the same time as I chucked my bag between them, hollering, “QUIT IT!”

My eyes met that of the new kid’s.

They were familiar.

The scent was growing more and more familiar.

I did a double take. “A.W…?”

Braxton sauntered over to me, and I began backing up warily. “That’s right, you two were besties, weren’tcha, McCoy?”

I puffed out my chest, tried to stand my ground, but could say nothing.

Out of nowhere, Braxton was being tipped over, had a wild-eyed Epsilon on his back, tackling him to the ground away from me. His hat flew off, and I could see him much better, could see how he grit his sharper teeth– With the way they smelled tumbling around like that, I didn’t know if I should intervene once more. 

Diana took my hand, her other covering her mouth. I shook her off carefully, bucking up again, shoving my way into the fray, yapping up into their faces, “STOP IT! GET AWAY FROM EACH OTHER!”

They were all panting as they did so explosively. 

“Milo, we better see you at practice,” Sleighton threatened, and I nearly wilted because of the tone, but suddenly I had a stronger scent at my back. They left towards the field, Diana tagging after them, admonishing them, but trying to see their injuries.

I turned around warily once more, and it really was my old best friend. Taller, bigger. He stooped to pick up his hat with a sigh and I saw the patterned shave on the side of his head. “Hey, McCoy.” Was that a tongue piercing? Two, side by side?

“Hi…” I snapped out of it, muscling up to him, asking, “Dude, what the hell?! You come back without even a text!?”

He replied, “I lost my phone. It got broken, and I lost my contacts.”

Smarting, I pulled away, even as he tried for a smile. “Are you okay? They didn’t rough you up too bad, did they?”

“Nah, I’m good.” He handed me my bag. “You’d better get to practice, right?”

I frowned at the bag, taking it, hauling it over my shoulder. But then I shook my head. “No, you idiot, I haven’t seen you in years. We’re going to go catch up.”

His scent was mellowing out slowly, and my shoulders relaxed. I wish I could have told him that I’d missed him.

Leaving the campus, we walked down to Woody’s.

“You got taller,” I complained. “I was supposed to be at least your height, remember?”

He smirked, shaking his head, asking, “Did you grow at all, dude?”

I hit him. He laughed, that honeyed smoke scent washing over me, throwing me off my game.

“How’s your mom? Your sister and dad?” he asked as we slipped into a booth, pulled the laminated menus from the window slot.

“Fine, I guess. Cat went to Penn State. Mom retired and I have no idea what she does with her time. Dad isn’t so sure I should be going to college.”

He nodded, listening intently, very… focused. “How’s your family? They let you get that?” I joked, a nod to the piercings in his mouth. 

He stuck his tongue out. “You can’t see them unless I talk, so, yeah, they didn’t know for about a week. Classic teenage rebellion. It was a dare.”

“My rebellion is not wearing the bracelet my dad got me,” I laughed, shaking my head. “And the hair– I like it.”

He cocked his head with a smile. “Thanks. Actually it was because my brother nicked me in the head with his clippers as a prank.”

“I wish I could cut my hair like that and stuff. My dad’s really pushing finding a mate early, though, so he’s not letting me do some things.”

He raised a brow. “You’ve been courted?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. He tries getting me with Alphas from other little towns around here, but I’m not interested.” He nodded. “But… Why are you guys back? Did Georgia not work out?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Also my Grandma needed us back here. She’s getting older and I guess it’s nice to have your pup close. Really, it’s just me, Lenora and my moms. Kaden went to college, too.”

“Oh. Are you gonna go?”

“I’ll be in debt, but yeah, I figured I should.”

“We’re working on all that right about now in school.”

“School,” he grimaced. He glanced down to the menu. “I smell a good chicken fried steak.”

“Oh, yeah, it is– I always got the patty melt, though.”

“I remember,” he smiled. “God, we were cringey, man, meeting up here to exchange video games.”

“What can you do about the middle school years, dude?” 

As if on cue, a group of three Beta middle schoolers piled into the diner behind our booth. We exchanged an amused look as they began counting their change out loud to see what kind of milkshake they could buy. 

Maybe it was salty of me, mean of me, but I had to ask as our drinks were placed down before us, “Who did you leave back in Georgia? Any buddies?”

He shook his head. “Big cities aren’t that different from small towns. Sure I had people I was close to– My moms wanted me to make friends there– but, no, I don’t think they’ll miss me too much.”

“I missed you,” I blurted, covering it up, looking out the window, clearing my throat, “For the first year anyway.”

He laughed, and it was such a genuine one as he slumped his face against his hand that I had to wonder what kind of cunning people saw in him that made them so hateful. “Yeah, I missed you, too. I tried so hard to get my contacts back, dude.” He wasn’t changing the subject– I knew I was supposed to be good at emotions as an Omega, but he’d always had me beat, bless his heart. “It was lonely. Lenora and I got closer. But she…” He huffed, “To be honest, she’s a loner because she wants to be. Me? No.”

There was this terrible burst of affection for my best friend happening in my chest to hear that, sympathy and wanting to do something about it, like those times when we were little where I’d absentmindedly tried to build nests around him. “I hang out with good people,” I told him. “You remember Beaver and Hannah? I spend time with them and with Ronnie– you might have seen him he’s a crazy redhead with this spiked hair. And Linus, he’s laid back. Abby and Declan are, too, even though they’re Alphas. Come sit with us at lunch. I didn’t see you in the cafeteria today.”

“Too many new scents,” he explained apologetically. He rethought it. “Well not new, per se, but… stronger.”

I lifted my chin. “We all got stronger. You including,” I assured him.

“My scent?”

Awkwardness was coming over me. I felt flustered? I spread my hands out on the table, looking between my fingers. “Well, yeah, but I meant in general.”

He took a deep breath. My ears were burning, knowing he was picking up on however damn bashful I was being. Maybe it was because he was like an Alpha, but damn him and his Beta nose. No. Epsilon. 

Thankfully, we ordered before I could sit in any more awkward silence. 

“You play lacrosse, right?” he asked, stirring his coke with his straw as he watched me, his tongue piercings flashing. 

I nodded excitedly. “You should join! You’re tall and big and we could always use more players cause most of the Alphas don’t put their all into it because of football.”

“But I’m an Epsilon.”

I cocked my head. “So?” What was he trying to get at?

“I’d disrupt the team dynamic,” he explained. “I wouldn’t do well in a team.”

“Oh… Well, I think you would.”

“Yeah, maybe my personality, but one whiff and there’d be hostility.” He leaned back, telling me, “Epsilons weren’t exactly made for pack life in most cases. That’s what I learned.”

I remembered how when we were just getting to know each other though, when I’d dragged him into playing house with my Omega friends all frightened of him; he’d been wonderful. Looking out the window, arms folded, I muttered, “Well you got me, dumbass. For what it’s worth.”

“Oh, Milo,” he huffed, but there was something dark and sad in his smile he flashed. It must have been an Omegan instinct to want to figure that half smile out. Or a dumbass one. Probably the latter.

It was dark after we ate, so he offered to walk me home, and I took him up on it, cursing at the cold weather, pulling a cigarette stub from my pocket and lighting it up.

“You smoke?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I grumbled. 

“McCoy, that’s–” I shot him a look that would have (hopefully) shut down anyone of his caliber or higher up, but he just kept going. “Not healthy.”

“Keeps me sane, A.W.”

He rolled his eyes, mumbling, “I knew I smelled something different about you.”

I didn’t ask what it was: the smoke or the smell of apathetic despair to my situation. He probably smelled more than I could even sense from myself knowing him. 

When we got to my house, I seemed to take him by surprise in hugging him, bag and all, though I was careful to make sure no accidental scenting happened– my family would have a fit. Blunt and brusque, I told him at arm’s length, “I’m glad you’re back.”

He nodded, returning the sentiment, but then he surprised me this time with a hug, and though I didn’t feel it was right to cling to him the way I did, I did it without a second thought.

It was too fast. He let go, so I had to, too.

“See you tomorrow, McCoy,” he said with a wave as he walked backwards.

“See ya.”


	4. The Crying Car

It was a shame we didn’t have classes with each other. Or so I thought. Actually, he was there in my Biology class sitting by the near wall towards the back, hat pulled over his eyes, leaned back in his seat like he was sleeping between classes. I walked right up to him, dropped my bag, and peeked under his hat, startled to see him looking at me. “I didn’t know we had Biology together!”

He tipped his hat back and smiled at me, “My schedule’s still being shifted around.”

“Imma sit right here,” I decided, plopping my butt into the seat next to his. “They let you wear the hat?”

“It’s to cover the hair.”

“Ohhh.”

From Bio, we went to lunch, and I introduced him to my table, saying, “You guys remember A.W. from middle school?”

It wasn’t like I hadn’t told them in advance in the group chat. 

Beaver smiled, saying, “We were Social Studies partners for a bit.”

“Hey, Beaver, how’s it going?” A.W. asked, and I had to admit I loved what he was giving off right now, open and talkative and unfazed. 

In the bathroom, I asked Ronnie, “Isn’t he cool?”

“Yeah, he’s actually pretty chill.”

“ _ You see? _ ” I flicked water off my hands before drying them with a towel as he fixed his hair. “I…” I took a deep breath and said what I meant. “I hope this time around goes better for him. I know he fought a lot– well, fights a lot– but he can be so nice. He’s my best friend, you know?”

“I mean, I  _ didn’t _ know, but now it makes sense.” He pulled back from the water-splashed mirror, moving for Lindsey. “I hadn’t known you two were best friends back then. I thought you were trying to make a move on him or something–”

I was red. “ _ Of course not! _ ” 

“Sorry, dude, my bad.” I picked up on the calming pheromones and realized just how worked up I was. 

Lindsey cut in, asking, “Wait, is this about that Epsilon?”

I gave her a look. I knew she didn’t like him. Her Alpha littermate Perry and he fought. “What’s it to you?” I asked, lifting my chin, hands at my sides, Ronnie looking on with a hand poised on his hip. 

“You’ve always had a fascination with the weird, McCoy,” she huffed, rolling her eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?! He’s not  _ weird _ .”

“Yeah, sure.” She made to leave. 

Despite her being a Beta, something came over me, filling my senses. I blocked the bathroom door, looked her in the eye and snarled, “Quit talking shit.”

Suddenly Hannah was behind me at the door pulling me back out of the bathroom. “Milo, what the hell was that? Were you fighting? It reeks like burnt caramel!”

I let out a sigh, pushing my back against the wall as Lindsey tore out of the bathroom, Ronnie following slowly. “I’m sick of people giving him a hard time for no reason. Have they ever thought that maybe the reason he acts the way he does is because they push him to it?” It was out. Covering my mouth with my forearm, I went past them, going out to the patio where it was cold and the Alphas liked to hang out, hoping I could cool my head. All it really accomplished was that I had a handful of worried Alphas on my tail trying to sniff me out. I rounded about to the front of the school, hoping they’d lose interest, but– Oh.

One of those scents wasn’t purely Alpha.

A.W. popped around the corner, regarding me evenly before leaning against the brick by me. “You don’t have to get into fights on my account, Milo.”

“I forgot how hard it was.” He sighed, nodding, and I realized how bad that sounded, holding my head. “Not– How hard it was to keep from shouting at all of them.”

“Hey, Milo.” I looked his way. He stuck his tongue out, wiggled his piercings, and I laughed in astonishment. 

“That’s so  _ cool!  _ Hey, did it hurt?”

“Nah, not too much. It was a pain to keep clean, though.”

I nodded, waiting to hear more. But he didn’t say anything. He was just looking at me. And I was watching him back. It felt like the minutes were dragging by, but I didn’t even care. Then he did the piercing thing again, not breaking eye contact and I laughed.

In those moments, what Ronnie had told me weighed heavily on me. Me and him would never work even if I wanted it to. It wouldn’t be ‘right’ according to my father. Or by many people’s old fashioned standards. 

“Hey, you wanna go see the old trainyard later? I wanna see if the marble tin I left is still there.”

“Sure!” I had to second-guess myself, though, admitting, “But not this weekend.” I had a set up date with an Alpha that I was dreading. Also: “Alphas like to hang down there on Friday nights.”

“Tonight? I’ll stick around until you get out of practice.”

“Where the hell did you leave that thing anyway?”

He rubbed at the brim of his cap. “In one of the last cars. The one with the bench, remember?”

A smile came to my face as I looked up at the cold sky. “The one with the holes. Got cut once.”

I think the last time I’d been down to that area was with Ronnie to get his older Alpha brother for curfew a year or so back. It had been an old haunt of me and A.W.’s on the southern side where the trees were. One we only went to to be spooky, and only in the middle of the day before my sister had started having to chaperone us when we were out. 

It was like magic how he seemed to read my mind, shrugging pleasantly. “Your sister can come, too.”

I raised an eyebrow. “She’s in college, A.W.”

“Soooo she doesn’t have to come.”

“I’m sure as hell not gonna tell my parents; you know my dad would burst a blood vessel.”

“Not mellowed, yet, huh?”

I shook my head, digging in my pocket for a cigarette to chew on. 

“Milooo,” he admonished.

“What?” I whined.

He gave me this pointed look I had to look away from, mumbling around my little stub.

He swung in front of me, catching me off guard, catching me frozen as he took it from my mouth, sniffing it then recoiling, asking, “Where do you even get this stuff?”

I felt like I was about to stammer, but surprisingly I was clear and concise despite how close he was. “Wherever I can find them. Gas station trash, parking lots–”

“ _ Milo– _ You’re gonna get some kind of weird disease before you die of lung cancer!”

I just shrugged. He growled over his shoulder, and though it was away from me, him not directing it at me purposefully, I nearly slipped down the wall, joints going limp, ready for submission that was characteristic of my dynamic. Only, uh… a little  _ too much  _ in this instance.

“Who got you started on these?”

I grumbled, “I needed  _ something,  _ man. Dad always told me I couldn’t drink because of my dynamic.”

He dropped the stub. “Don’t pick that up.”

I narrowed my eyes at how compelling that was, asking quietly, “Are you using an A– Epsilon voice on me?”

“If that’s the only voice of reason you’ll listen to, then sure.”

I pushed off the wall, pushed past him, and it was incriminating to myself how that contact did something to me. I rubbed my temples as I walked off. He did not follow.

When I’d made my rounds, I found him back at the lunch table like nothing had happened. He was turned towards Beaver, my mellow Beta friend. 

I didn’t like it. 

I had to ask myself if it was because I didn’t want him to be close to my friends or if I didn’t want my friends to be close to him– and either way, wasn’t that hypocritical to everything I’d wanted earlier?

The next period couldn’t come fast enough.

The Alphas on my team gave me a wide berth– with the exception of Sleighton, who tormented me to the point of almost breaking into frustrated tears as he tried to force me to focus on the game better. Coach didn’t see, of course. 

A.W. was waiting after. Sleighton and Braxton and Perry gave him side eyes, had their hostile hormones out. Jerry, too; he hissed, and I saw his sharp molars.

A.W. closed his eyes purposefully before opening them back on me, intense with everything he wasn’t shooting back at my teammates.

He picked up on my distress too easily, though I was trying to mask it. “You stink,” he greeted with one of those sad half smiles.

“Cause I just beat the asses of dudes twice as big as you.” That would be Coach. I did indeed manage to skirt past him with a check.

“Never said it was a  _ bad _ stink, per se.” I shouldered my bag, walking beside him. “Are you mad?”

I was quiet with everything I couldn’t say. 

He suddenly drew closer to my face, sniffing carefully, and my mouth opened in surprise. He grunted, “So you didn’t smoke it.”

I shut my mouth, quickening my steps, shoving my hands in my pockets, telling him over my shoulder, “You know, with the way you look, dude, anyone would think  _ you _ smoke and not me.”

He rolled his eyes and caught up to me, pulling his cap off, dusting it off, feeling at his head. “ _ You liked  _ it.”

“Yeah? So?”

“So you can’t criticize it.”

“What are friends for if not to roast each other.”

He directed a pointed look at me. “To get them to kick their smoking habit. I can smell them in your jacket, you know.”

Relentless: that’s what this was. “Listen, asshat– Omegas are nervous creatures, and the–”

He snorted, “You? Nervous? You threw a lacrosse bag at me and two Alphas like yesterday. And who knows what Hannah would’ve done if–”

I was grinding my teeth. “Let up, will you?!”

He fell into silence beside me as we walked to the old train yard under the cover of an early dark. The way was overgrown where we had used to slip in, but the fence that town officials were threatening to put up wasn’t here yet.

“Dude, look,” he called, jogging ahead to one of the cars, turning back around to me with an exhilarated grin, “I think you dared me to jump off this one.”

“You should’ve,” I joked back. He gave me a look, and though I didn’t know what it meant, I had a hard time disliking it as I was supposed to. Before I knew it, he was swinging up there on the rusted away ladder. “Alistair-William if you think you’re jumping off that thing, so help me I’ll–”

“Watch this!”

My breath was trapped in my lungs as I watched him leap off with wild, gleeful eyes, choked with the scent of his exhilaration.

Surprisingly enough, he landed just fine, shooting me a grin that had his eyes closing. “See?” 

I wasn’t supposed to be feeling this way. Every rational thought screamed against it.

“Damn you, Gibbs, nearly giving me a heart attack– I couldn’t breathe you dumbass!” I hurried over to him, checking him over. “Is anything creaking? Are you hurt?”

He rested a hand on my shoulder. “Dude, chill. I’m fine.”

I punched him square in the stomach for that, but, funnily enough it didn’t seem to effect him too much, and, panicking, all I could do was lift a finger to him threateningly and stalk off.

When I stopped in front of the car, he asked quietly behind me, “Is that the one?”

I nodded. How could I forget the words that had been said in here, the tears that had been shed– on both sides. And I headed on in, sliding the door open with considerable effort to reveal the torn up inside, all scrap metal and unhinged parts. 

Our bench was still at its strange angle, the 90 degree thing turned on its point. I slipped on in, looking up at the low night clouds through the eaten away hole up top. 

A.W. pulled his tin from beneath the curved thing that we’d always called the hub cap, and sat next to me, opening it between us.

The faint scent of candy-flavored frosting lingered as I gazed fondly down at the collection of Power Ranger rings, the empty case for a video game we’d lost, coins we’d thought were special, A.W.’s old braces bracket he had hid from his moms, and a sprinkling of purple nerds thats color had faded over the years. I pulled out the green ring, and looked over at him, too wound up to tell him that this ring was why my favorite color was green.

“It matches your outfit,” A.W. noted, so I slipped it on proudly, only to deflate at the fact that it still fit my hand. When he laughed, I put all of them on and pretended to punch him across the face. “Violent tonight, aren’t you?”

“‘Activity is a good way to stay warm’,” I mimicked our old gym teacher with a high falsetto.

He took on a note of slight concern. “Cold, Milo?”

God, I shouldn’t have said anything. “I’m fine,” I bluffed. It wasn’t my fault I got chilled so easy.

He pulled off his black jacket, offering it with a gentle-sounding, “Here.”

I hesitated, swallowing hard. Did I dare take what tempted me? I did. I took it with a nearly hungry grasp, and popped the collar against the cold as a pretense, really taking in more of his scent, to rub the collar it against my scent glands. So many people said he smelled ‘wrong’. I never got that. Maybe it was because we were so close, but to me, the scents he had didn’t have to be in perfect harmony to be amazing. They could be dissonant and still manage to do this to me, it seemed. I hoped he didn’t see me close my eyes as I took a deep breath, insides practically shuddering.

I swallowed, looking mournfully up at the sky, and folded my hands behind my head, recognizing that I did, in fact, have a problem on my hands. 

When I glanced over at him, he was watching the sky, too, fingers absentmindedly fiddling with the coins in the tin, and I wondered if he was thinking about everything heavy that had happened here. I asked, voice too quiet for my own liking, “What’re you thinking about?”

He sighed, “Nothing important to you.”

I craned my neck his way. “Hah?! What’s that supposed to mean?!”

He was not meeting my eyes. “Really. Nothing.” He changed the subject with the tact that I so often envied, introducing a new topic. “You know, in Georgia, I found an online Epsilon support group? Actually it was all rare dynamics but we had a seperate chat room to use if we wanted.

“That’s amazing,” I returned, “But I do care about that, you know.”

He nodded and finally looked at me. “I know you do.” It was one of those gazes I couldn’t pull away from so easily. And, to my horror, I shuddered.

He frowned. “Still cold? We can go, get you warmed up–”

“No,” I cut in. “No, I want to stay.” I couldn’t tell him it was him making my body do these stupid things, turning my brain to a rat’s maze. It was self-destructive, what I did, insisting on staying, because he scooted closer to me, arm to arm, leg to leg, side to side. 

“You always took care of me. Let me take care of you.”

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?! Like, in what way? I was speechless feeling him against me, and the last logical part of my brain was hissing that this was wrong. That it would always be wrong. I’d been told I needed to feel this way towards an alpha and that he’d never end up with anyone.

Treacherous as I was, I watched him, chin nearly perched on his shoulder. And I nodded in simple response. 

He sighed, nodding back to himself as he craned his neck back to look up.

“A.W.?”

“Hm?”

“The Epsilon group. How many are there?”

He smiled and I was, too, before I knew it. “More than you’d think. At one point last year, about nine hundred were online. Of course I don’t know all of them, but–” He shrugged. “I know Lacey, Max, and Dillon the best.”

“Ever see them?”

“Nah. Dillon’s in jail, Lacey’s in college in Boston, and Max is our age, but across the country. He never did say where.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe it’s for the best. If I have a hard time with certain Alphas, maybe we’d have an even harder time together.”

I blinked down to the tin, then up to him. “You think if I wasn’t an Omega that we’d still get along?” His fingers stopped moving. I bit the inside of my cheek.

Dynamics were shit and shouldn’t exist if–

“I think so. I really do think so.”

I huffed a happy sigh, rubbing at my chin to try and hide my smile. Dynamics could stay. But then my face went dark. I knew there would be no safer place to tell the truth. “I remember when you told me you wished you were a different dynamic. I get it now. Not completely, but I get some of it.” He turned my way, whole body seeming to angle into me, whether to pay attention or offer comfort, I didn’t know. “I’d thought I’d be an Alpha when I was really little. No one told me any differently. At this point, I’d be happy to be a Beta.” My voice got quieter. “My parents scheduled a date for this weekend. I don’t know this Alpha. Cierro Padrone. I’m dreading it. And if–” I mumbled this part, “It’s not like I hate dresses, but if my dad is the one to make me wear one, I’m gonna explode.”

“I’m sorry.”

There was something other than sympathy I wasn’t willing to get into now in his scent, in the way he held close to me. “It’s not like I’d hate having a mate either. Just not like this.” I didn’t know why, but my eyes were pricking, stinging, though I tried to keep my view of the clouds as clear as possible.

He ducked his head, and my stomach worked itself into floaty-feeling knots. He rested his forehead to my shoulder, and all I could do was nod and bite my lip hard with all my front teeth to keep the tears from coming out. A familiar sounding croon came from him as he raised his head, tucking it over mine, putting an arm over my torso, holding my other side, drawing me closer. I closed my eyes tightly, held onto his arm, and listened to him croon for me. 

Teary, I managed to choke out, “Honestly, we should start calling this the Crying Car.”

He didn’t laugh at my attempt, but startled me with his nose at my temple, nuzzling carefully before just holding there. When I looked up, his eyelids were wrinkled with how hard he was squeezing his eyes shut. His arm was tense around me, though his grip was not tight in the slightest. 

We remained there in silence. 

Until his stomach growled. 

“Why didn’t you say you were hungry, you idiot?” I asked, poking him near his throat and he drew back with a grunt and a shrug. 

It was I who insisted we head on home. Of course, him being him, he walked me right up to my door, and it was there I returned his jacket, however reluctantly.

I waved goodbye to him on my porch as he walked home before going inside out of the cold, determined to commit how he touched me to memory, however guilty it weighed in me.

It was bad luck– or karma– that had my father be the first one to greet me. 

His nose flared in surprise, in catching the scent.

“Milo what– Why do you smell like that?” He launched up from his chair, going to me, and I could do nothing but stand there in mortification, hanging my head as he accused, “You were with an Alpha!? You’re meeting one Sunday!”

Not an Alpha. Did he not recognize the scent?

He growled angrily, and began to scent me like I was still a kid, asking, “What the hell do you think you’re doing, boy?”

“I was feeling upset. A friend comforted me.”

“What? By smothering you with their scent?”

“I’m not smothered!” I protested. 

“Might as well be!”

“I was lent a jacket and given a hug!” If that was what you could call it… 

“Whose?”

I was silent, looking down, wondering when my mother would come pluck me out of this mess. It was my fault, wasn’t it?

She didn’t.

My father growled in my face and I cowered, hating myself for it as he said, “Get something to eat, then  _ get  _ upstairs.”

Shakily I went through with it, spurred on by submission, and hurried up to my room, slamming and locking the door, blinking back tears. I slowly lowered myself down into my nest before launching up, realizing I still smelled like my father with some kind of disgust down in my belly. The scent that had once comforted me when I was small, now turned my stomach over with unease. 

Pacing, I stripped off my clothes, feeling too hot and angry for them now.

I rubbed at my own scent glands with my arms and wrists, trying to cover up with my own scent. 

The fact that I had to do this made me angry, enraged. I kept pacing, cracking my knuckles, eyeing my door. I swung my arm back–

But before it could make contact, my flannel’s scent beneath my feet wafted up to me. It was mine, it smelled like me, but in there was also A.W.’s scent. And  _ God _ , the way our scents mixed was nothing short of euphoric, every dissonant part of him finding a harmony in me. I fell to my knees, clutching it to my face, taking deep whiffs of it in. I didn’t understand: if this is what I’d smelled like walking in the door, how did my father hate it?

How could anybody come to hate my best friend, my Epsilon, for what he was without looking at  _ who  _ he was.

My mouth craned open at the sensation of slick running down the back of my thigh, hitting my heel with the way I sat, warm and positively  _ reeking  _ of me.

My eyes had gone wide, my mouth dry.

This wasn’t supposed to have happened for another two weeks. My last heat had been only a week and a half ago. 

I’d heard of this happening, but never to  _ me. _

Had A.W. just put me into  _ heat? _ Could he even do that as an Epsilon and not a traditional Alpha?

Guilt and… other things… were filling me up as I filtered through how this had happened. Stumbling to my feet, I staggered to my nightstand, staring at the bottle of suppressants, taking them and the shirt with me into my nest, wiping the corner of my mouth clean of drool with a huffed breath. 

Google was the first place I turned. Incognito mode obviously. I remained on it for hours, forgetting my food, my suppressants.

‘Can an epsilon send an omega into heat?’

‘Does an epsilon have a knot?’

‘Can an epsilon help an omega through a heat?’

‘Can an epsilon breed?’

It wasn’t the first time I’d thought of him among others during a heat. This carried so much more weight with it, though.

My mother hesitantly cracked open my door. “Milo, honey, are you alright? You smell like you’re in–”

“Heat?” I puffed, pulling a pillow to me. “I am.” She frowned, coming in, and drenched my room in calming pheromones, which I did and did not like. I assured her, upset as I could be with my mother’s scent placating me, “I’ll be fine for Sunday if I take enough suppressants. And I can come right home after.”

All she did was nod, and then I was left alone with my heat-soaked, guilt-ridden fantasies to carry me through, finally remembering to take my pills to ease it a little.


	5. A Perfect Invitation

Thursday passed. A.W. asked me over text if I was okay, if it was because I was grounded. I told him I was sick, too ashamed to tell him the truth about what happened.

Then Friday.

Saturday came, and my mother had to come in to inform me that she’d just had to turn A.W. away, though he left the gatorade and medicine his moms had helped him make for colds. And she’d told him I was in heat. As if it wasn’t obvious when she opened the door for him.

“HAH?!” I crowed in surprise and embarrassment. I cussed under my breath as I threw a shirt on and tore open the window above my nest in turn, seeing him a little ways off. “A.W!” I screamed. My mother tried to pull me back, sensing the spike in my pheromones, but I shrugged her off, telling her, “I’m fine. I’m gonna thank him.” Again I took a deep breath as he turned around, calling his name again, feeling it making my throat hoarse. He came back at a jog, and stood beneath as I looked down. “Thank you.”

“You told me you were sick,” he nearly accused.

I looked to the side. “It– It kinda is like being sick.” This was bad, I didn’t think I’d taken enough suppressants today, and everything ached for him. I sucked in the air with his scent like it was a drug as I stared down at him, and him up at me. 

“You’re not going tomorrow, are you?”

“Gonna have to. I’m gonna load myself up with suppressants and go.”

“Milo,” my mother called softly, a hand on my arm. I looked to her and her realization was still fresh in her eyes, sad as it made her. My stomach dropped. She knew how I’d reacted to him; she knew how I was feeling.

“Hang in there, dude,” he called up.

“Thanks. I’ll be back next week.”

“Check your texts,” he reminded as he lifted a hand in parting, and I waved goodbye. He was rubbing the back of his neck as he went, and I watched, leaning against the windowsill, completely out of it with the exception of watching that one little detail. 

As soon as I couldn’t see him anymore, I closed the window, my mother only sticking around to make sure I did. And then she began to leave.

Suddenly choked with fear, I asked her, “Don’t tell Dad.” She stopped in her steps. “Please… Mom, you can’t–…”

She went back to me, taking my arms, resting her forehead against mine. “I won’t. There’s nothing anyone can do about it, even if he doesn’t know it.”

I nodded, licking my lips. 

With her gone, I leapt into my nest and snatched up my phone, reading what A.W. had just sent.

: You’re going to meet a possible mate in a heat.

I replied : Dad says it’ll make them like me more. 

: Fuck that. I thought you didn’t want to meet any of them. You might even send this one into rut.

: i dont. But what can I do huh?

I scented my sister’s old blanket absentmindedly.

: I have an idea.

That idea of his had me sneaking out onto my front porch in the near middle of the night with the shirt I was supposed to wear tomorrow, a blue blousy thing. 

We barely exchanged any greetings. He took the shirt and began to scent it, and I could only watch, rapt. Fire laced down my spine when he caught my eye as he did it, and he kept looking without any shame as he inhaled my scent, replacing it with his own.

The idea was that it’d confuse the suitor because he was an Epsilon, but also it would serve as a deterrent, the idea being I was already involved with someone else. As I watched him do it, though, salivating heavily in my mouth, insides jolting with pleasure, I was rightfully worried that I’d just take the thing and use it for my own devices, and by the time morning came, it would smell of me once more. Honestly, this was why I had petitioned for one of those Alpha pheromone oil diffusers, but  _ no _ , my father thought they were improper!

Finally, he spoke as he continued to drench my clothing in his scent, asking, “What time is it going to be tomorrow?”

“Two. We’re meeting him and his parents for lunch tomorrow over in Frostburg.”

He nodded, briefly closing his eyes as he nosed into my shirt, and it was a good thing he did because I slapped a hand over my mouth at that, head a mess, feeling like there was such a haze over my thoughts… 

When he opened his eyes on me, I knew I didn’t have enough time, him being here doing these  _ things  _ speeding another wave into being. 

The yellow porch light was casting shadows onto the far side of his face. His chest moved beneath his shirt, swelling as he took another deep breath. I folded my arms over my stomach, the tingling in it about ready to bring me to my knees; though it was cold, I was fine in a hoodie and basketball shorts due to my heat. 

He let out a little sigh, holding the shirt up, passing it back to me. And I couldn’t help from burying my face into it, closing off a whimper in my throat. His own voice sounded tight when he asked, “Is… Is there anything else you’d like me to scent?”

I could think of dozens of things, but the forefront in my mind was  _ me.  _ I wanted him to scent  _ me.  _ “That’s not weird?” I asked hesitantly.

“If it helps you, probably not.”

It was without a second thought that I pulled off my hoodie, exposing my heated body to the cold, and he took a fast step back. I paused, jaw tight.

He took a few careful steps closer, painfully slowly, and took the hoodie as I held my wrists, more than ready to watch him do it again. As he seemed to take in the scent hungrily, I shifted frequently, recalling his words from the train car: Let me take care of you. Was this what he’d had in mind? Was this gross for him? I think I was leaking through my pad at this point. He rubbed every inch of that hoodie across his scent glands and back again. And again, I was nearly toppled by how our scents interacted, twining together, feeling my knees beginning to shake slightly.

Without the big hoodie, though, it was a difficult reality to face that I had to hide my erection, and it was only now that I was glad that it was small. 

I didn’t think his would be. No. I’d researched enough…

I nearly felt like crying watching him, blaming everything in conflict in me. 

“Anything else?” he asked softly. And my for my next request I’d have to trust he knew what he was doing, because I was past that point.

I held my hoodie in my arms, skin tingling when in contact with his powerful scent. “Maybe just a hug cause I feel like shit?”

He closed the gap between us, stepping to me quickly and wrapping his arms around me, bare hands on my bare back, nearly making me jump and arch. It was a blessing the hoodie was draped between our fronts, or at least lower fronts… 

I was shaking as I took in deep breaths of him, arms around his neck, for once not minding how small I felt. It was like I was in a trance when I nosed at his scent gland, reaching for it on my tiptoes. I was rewarded with an outpouring of his scent due to his surprise, and I rubbed my face into it, trying to assure myself it was only instinct and I still had a handle on myself.

But the way I was breathing when he nosed me back much more roughly, letting out a low growl told me something else. My nails sunk into his shirt, and my head fell to the side, the perfect invitation, and he did not waste a moment, rubbing his scent gland to mine hard, causing hot friction on already heated skin. I could feel his labored breaths in my hair on the back of my head, could feel how tense his hands were.

The sound I made when he nipped around my neck sent even more heat flushing through me, and my knees went, so focused on his mouth against me. I think slick was dripping down my leg. I was nearly limp as he held me up, scenting at my other side, taking my skin between his teeth, tasting.

I needed more. So much more.

And in that moment, I was more than willing to let him knot me on the front step, drooling into his shoulder as I tried to stifle sounds that shouldn’t have been coming out. 

I think my heart stopped when I felt pressure against my lower abdomen, when I realized what had happened. 

He let out a shaking snarl over my saliva and sweat wet skin, his own arms trembling. He bit harder into my scent glands and I gasped at the sensation and the implication of it should he have decided to bite harder, falling further into him, body feeling like it had been poured full of static. No skin was broken, and he pulled back, eyes huge, panting as hard as I was.

My hands were still on his arms, hands trembling. “I’m so sorry,” he choked out, taking another slow step back. “I never meant to–”

The surprise gave me a bit more strength to use my voice. “I asked for it,” I admitted, fingers trailing off his arms, falling to my sides as I hung my head in shame. “It’s fine. Shit happens.” I buried my fingers into my clothes. “I really appreciate this.”

“Y–Yeah.” He swallowed, then took a few more steps away. I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled to keep my mouth shut, to keep his name out of my mouth, though that’s all there was bouncing around in my head.

He began going down the porch steps.

I turned to go back inside, my right knee buckling.

He spun back around, asking to my back as I held onto the doorknob, “Do I need to help you inside?”

“No.”

I shut the door quietly behind me.

I dragged my shaking form upstairs, locked my door.

I came. And then I cried. I sobbed out of frustration, out of grief for everything I couldn’t have, and I didn’t stop until morning came and I had soaked the hoodie he’d scented with tears.

I got some sleep in the morning, and my mom came to wake me at eleven. I didn’t let her in, but got up anyways, an eye on the blue top I’d wear today.

I was no good at makeup. I didn’t want to put it on in the first place cause the absence of it continued to spite my father, but my mother did me up anyways, and to be honest, I looked nice. No more puffy eyes, the ruddiness around them concealed. It was nice and light and natural, and it almost made me want to cry again to think that I was playing right into my father’s plans. 

I wore a coat of my sister’s, hoping it would cover up A.W.’s scent close to my skin, and despite the fact I had so much suppressant coursing through my body, it still found a way to be constantly aroused thanks to that blue blouse. 

For a little while, my mother had her arm reached back to hold my hand. It helped keep me focused.

The drive was only about forty minutes, but I was stifled in that car, and sucked down lungfuls of air once we got out in front of the restaurant: The Cedar Tree. Nothing too fancy. Just a cafe. 

Dread was pooling in my belly, and my mother tried to take my hand again as we went in, as food and people surrounded us.

My father asked for two tables, which I hadn’t expected to happen, that me and my prospective mate should be left alone.

Apparently, not very alone, because while I was seated at a smaller table near the wall that had only two chairs, my parents were to my left at a table for four, my father jabbering on to my mother that they were on their way and how this place had amazing chicken and where they got that chicken and all that.

It was then that I shucked the coat.

They did not notice immediately, which was good, and I didn’t think they would at all to be quite honest. 

A group of three entered about fifteen minutes later: parents and an Alpha boy around my age. 

My father stood, shaking the hands of the male Omega first before the male Alpha.

The boy was as tall as A.W., had dark olive skin and a dark buzzcut, and smelled very clean for starters, his natural scent something like earth itself. 

“Cierro?” I asked as he approached, taking in my scent it seemed. I almost held my breath as he did so.

“Milo?” he answered back with a broad smile, sticking out his hand. 

I nodded once, giving it a businesslike shake, because that’s all that was. “We get our own table,” I said, nodding to the seats to my side.

His parents rounded about to me and Cierro to mine before we went our separate ways.

I watched the parents with a curious eye. Cierro watched me and fiddled with his paper napkin before finally asking, “So you live in Punxsutawney. That’s where they hold Groundhog Day, right?”

“I feel pretty immune to it by now, but yeah, there’s a whole lot of tourist stuff.”

“Your accent– where are you from?”

“Tennessee.”

“It’s cute.”

I flattened my mouth and nodded before replying with a flat, “Thanks,” and looking down to my menu.

This was already painful.

I was lucky my father was so distracted with himself that he didn’t notice the mingling of scents under my sister’s coat. 

After last night, I was more than a little frightened to text A.W., but I did anyways, checking in with :mission accomplished. I’m bound to be the most boring Omega Cierro ha ever seen. And my parents didn’t notice your scent under my sister’s as long as I wore the coat.

He sent a celebratory gif of a dancing dog, and I laughed in the back seat. 

This prompted my father to ask what he should have asked in the beginning, or at least right after, “So? How did you like him?”

I spewed lines I knew from TV dramas my mother had constantly running without looking up from my phone. “He was nice but I can’t imagine spending my life with him as a mate at all. He’s not that type of Alpha for me.” 

“That was quick,” my father grumbled. “So we drove all this way for that?”

“We drove thirty minutes.”

My mother spoke up for me, sounding drained, “When we know, we know.”

I nodded once. And she knew who had my attentions. 


	6. Is It a Date If His Sister's There?

The next day, I loaded myself back up with suppressants and returned to school. No one asked questions, just wished me well, gave me pats and hugs. 

The worst and best hug was A.W. because there in the hall, we had shared knowledge no one else knew about as we were pressed together. 

I nearly growled as I felt my body react to his pheromones. If he extended my heat, I swear he was going to be fucked one way or another. I’d never had to deal with this kind of thing before. It used to be only the occasional Alphas who’d made me get all angry and weak, but now it was him. 

In first period, miserable, I laid my chin on my desk and did not raise it for about an hour.

Biology was next, and though I was not excited for this, my body got there as quick as we could. A.W. came in behind me, and I nearly stopped and turned to him there.

A few deep breaths and I felt more in control, answering normally when he asked how I felt. 

What wasn’t very normal was how I was fascinated with the buzzed stripes on his head, tracing over them with a single finger, asking, “Do you think I’d look good with something like this?”

He chuckled, “You think your parents would let you?”

I was having too much fun touching his head until class started and he had to put his hat on and I had to sit properly in my chair.

Once my heat was completely gone, I was insanely relaxed that week.

A.W. invited me to come have pizza night with him and his sister while their parents had their date night on Friday, and I was convinced this was both the best and worst thing to happen to me. I wore comfy clothes, skirting around my father to hide how feminine I thought they might appear, and stopped in the convenience store on the way there to bring some A.W. Rootbeer– of course.

Lenora opened the door for me, expression as blank as usual, scent as dampered as usual, but clean and perfumey like dryer sheets, and asked me to come in, saying, “Hey, Milo,” in a quiet voice. “Glad you could make it. We were thinking we’d eat around seven; is that alright with you?” I nodded, holding the bag out for her to peek into. “What do we have here?” She saw the label, and the corner of her mouth just barely twitched up– it was the most anyone could hope to get out of her. “Hm, that’s nice,” she nodded. Without raising her voice in the slightest, she called over her shoulder, “A.W., your friend’s here.”

A.W. came sliding in from the back, on the phone, talking passionately about– well I didn’t exactly know what.

“No, I told you that would never work! I’m serious! You’ve got to start taking my advice some time.” He greeted me with a smile, but didn’t hold the receiver away from his ear or anything. He pulled me into the house, tossing a friendly arm around me. I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end very well, but he cut in, saying, “Because  _ they’re criminals.  _ Give one good reason they would have stopped?” I jolted in surprise, gave him a serious look, and he patted my shoulder, shaking my head at me with an unbothered glance. “Listen, he just came over so I’m gonna have to let you go.” I ducked out from under his arm– however reluctantly– and held up my hands, about to hiss to him that it was fine. “Yeah, you get some rest. Alright. Bye.” He put his phone back into his pocket. 

“Who was that?” I nearly smacked myself, knowing that wasn’t what I’d needed to say. “I mean, you can call them back.”

“No. You’re here, and he’s not,” he insisted factually.

“What’s the matter? It sounded like he was in trouble.” Nevertheless, A.W.’s scent was calm.

“He’s from the support group.” The Epsilon support group? “Got in with a group at his school that caused him some… issues.”

“Shady.”

“ _ Very. _ ”

“No, you, talking like you know all about this stuff.” My smile faded. “Do you… know all about this stuff?”

“I’ve never been in a pack, if that’s what you’re  _ really  _ asking,” he said, rolling his eyes, taking the bag, looking inside and popping back up with a laugh.

“Lenora told me pizza was at seven.”

“Yeah, is that okay? I can make you a snack or something or we could order earlier.”

I think it was selfish of me to insist, “Make me a snack,” just like that. No hemming, hawing, no bashfulness about it, just a demand.

He didn’t seem to mind at all, going back into the kitchen purposefully as I wandered aimlessly into the living room.

I looked to the chair beside me, in it, all manner of pillows and blankets. I saw one in particular– “What’s this out for?” I asked him, going to the kitchen with him, wondering what on earth he could be making. 

“The pillows? Lenora suggested we make a nest– Or… You guys. You guys make a nest. I don’t know if you want me helping.”

I nudged him. “Sure we do.” He nodded, smiling. “And if we don’t like it we’ll change it when you’re not looking.”

“ _ Hey! _ ”

I pushed myself up on the counter behind him, watching as he made something. I couldn’t tell what it would be yet, but it involved bread and jelly and something else in a jar, and I was happy to let it remain a surprise, watching his back. I felt obscene for finding something so undeniably attractive about him in a simple blue t-shirt, and ever since our encounter, I was definitely on edge, knowing he had pheromones my body interpreted as strong enough to put me into heat. 

Lenora was moving things from her room to out here, things like a laptop charger, comfort beanies with strong scents in them, a lapdesk and more. Remembering what A.W. had told me, apparently she hadn’t been able to handle college and had come home after a nervous breakdown. She hadn’t left since, though she did accompany the family on outings some times. Kind of like my mother, I had no idea what she did all day.

A.W. caught me by surprise as he came up to me and asked, “Could you grab the sugar while you’re there? It’s on the second shelf.”

“Here?” I asked a bit too loudly, internally cringing at the sound, smacking a hand to the cabinet to my right. 

“No, the left.”

I got him the canister of sugar, handing it down to him carefully. “Thank you. And the cinnamon beneath that?”

Fuck, I loved cinnamon… 

He smirked up at me, and I guess my scent must have sweetened or something because of the mention of cinnamon. “What are you making?”

“French toast rolls.”

“You offered a  _ snack! _ I had no idea you were about to make a meal, dude!”

“We can have some now and some more for dessert,” he suggested, going about his merry way.

“Should I help?”

“Nah, I got this.”

“What’re we gonna watch?” I asked, leaning on the same counter he was working on so I could talk to him better. So he’d pay attention.

My skin crawled as he looked up from under a sweep of hair, rolling the bread flat. 

It was obvious by now that something was making me attracted to him, my best friend, hormones, pheromones, whatever. That was all I’d concede. But it sure was damn inconvenient when I had to ask with burning ears, “One more time?” despite the fact I’d been looking him in the eye as he spoke.

“Iron Man Three, A Quiet Place, or The Wolf of Wall Street.”

“Oh, I haven’t seen A Quiet Place yet!”

“Supposed to be–” he took a big breath, hissing it out as he curled his fingers into claws, jumping at me, “Spooky! Can you handle it?”

I folded my arms. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Then I look forward to being a-spooked, then, I guess. You need a pan?”

“Uh, yeah. Under the stove.”

“Just like the other house, huh?”

“Mhm. It’s weird being in the same neighborhood.”

I watched closely as he fried them up, and I think he could smell my hunger on me, which was a very handy ability for a friend to have because he handed me one fresh off the griddle, and I was in charge of the cinnamon sugar, putting extra cinnamon on mine. It was sweet and soft with the slightest crisp to it, and I groaned, startling him because he jumped a step away. “You know,” I sighed, looking down to the roll. “It’s kind of sad that you’re a better cook than me. My dad would love it if I could do stuff like this.”

“If you can keep yourself alive that’s good enough,” he chuckled. “Also, I’m  _ not _ a good cook. Remember the eggs?”

Ah, yes. The Great Egg Incident of seventh grade. He’d overboiled eggs and had tried to make them edible using various condiments including but not limited to cool whip and peppers we hadn’t known were peppers. I nodded. “I was wrong.”

I downed three before they were all done and he took them from me to put on the counter, hollering, “Lenora! I made food!”

Her voice came quietly from the couch, and I jumped, not even noticing she was there until she raised a thumbs up. “Good job.” 

The sun set quickly and darkness set in as we sat on his bed, going through one of his old yearbooks and me getting to see the ones I’d missed.

“You dork!” I snickered, pointing to the shaggy bowl cut he had in freshman year. “Who let you do that!?”

He rolled his eyes, hitting me with a pillow he grabbed from behind him. 

Before I knew it, it was time to order pizza and start the movie. While A.W. ordered the food, Lenora and I began to put together the nest. Thankfully our tastes seemed to align.

I was surprised to be holding a blanket that smelled surprisingly strongly of A.W., and before I knew it, I scented it once. My eyes were taped open wide as I held it away from me. Turning over my shoulder, I asked Lenora, “Can I scent some stuff?” I didn’t want to impose my scent in their household without permission. 

She nodded. “If it will make you more comfortable.”

So I did, closing my eyes. I scented a few other things like pillows that got placed at our backs, at our sides. 

When A.W. came in, he took a deep breath, testing the air, and I didn’t quite believe my eyes as he quite seriously took a pillow that had my scent on it and scented it himself.

“I, uh– Lenora said I could scent some stuff. Sorry if it–”

“Hm? No, it’s fine,” he replied, and for some reason it seemed like he’d just woken up from sleep when he said that. He placed the pillow back down, and I just had to angle it the way it had been before, earning a chuckle out of him.

We settled down, A.W. between me and Lenora, Lenora handing her brother the remote as she fixed a pillow behind her. It wasn’t weird that me and him were touching, right? She was touching him, too. Family and friends, right? Right?

The movie began quietly, aptly named.

I could smell A.W.’s unease begin slowly, and it seemed both me and Lenora released some calming pheromones, which only made me feel cozier as I fixed the fold of a blanket behind him, hand lingering on his back, hoping to comfort him a little bit more. 

I couldn’t be in love with him, though. That wasn’t something that could happen between us given who we were, but still, in the darkness as I snuggled down, looking up at him as much as I watched the movie, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be. 

He was trying to be the tough guy, arms across the back of the sofa, effectively around both of us. My mouth curved into a smile at how differently this was playing out.

We all ended up jumping, though, when the doorbell rang, and A.W. ended up jumping right to his feet, the scent of ferocious defense and attack making my knees go stiff under me. 

“Reel it in, A.W,” Lenora reminded him as he snatched up the money to go pay for the food.

It still hadn’t quite faded when he returned with the two boxes, sliding them onto the coffee table, but somehow I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would. No, I practically welcomed him with open arms, linking an arm with him as he leaned back with a huge huff, stroking up his forearm once, eyes on the prize as I leaned forward to grab a box and hand Lenora the other. It ended up being that we used A.W.’s knees to balance both of them. He was scarfing down slice after slice, and I whispered over the movie, “How are you  _ still  _ hungry?!”

“Big metabolism,” he grunted back, stuffing another slice into his pie hole.

Though I didn’t ever have a big appetite, it made me worried that there wouldn’t be enough pizza for me, an unfounded fear. 

The movie was coming to its suspenseful climax and while A.W. was wound up, I was as warm and languid as a cat just to be against him and smell our scents mixing again, so preoccupied with that that his sister’s scent didn’t even bother me. I was dangerously comfortable enough to rest my head over onto his shoulder and angle into him, knees touching his leg, trying to provide him with some security, however selfishly it turned out. 

For a few moments, Lenora went to the kitchen to retrieve the french toast rolls, and it was then that he looked down at me. 

Maybe this was what people meant when they said Epsilons were cunning, winding their way into your life and heart, wrapped too tightly to get out now. 

It was a struggle to keep my hands were they were instead of latching onto him.

It was only a look. I had to keep telling myself that as he directed his gaze back to the movie and Lenora came back, offering me a roll I took gratefully, trying to get my mind off of the boy I could feel breathing against me, paranoid I’d fall into another heat if I let myself think it was alright to feel this way about him.

As the credits started rolling, Lenora took the leftovers to the kitchen, leaving with only a comment of, “Lovely cinematography.”

I heard her retreat to her room, and suddenly all the french toast rolls I’d eaten were sitting too heavily in my stomach, nerves striking through me. I tried to mask it with, “You were more scared than we were.”

“Psh– Yeah, sure, Milo.” 

He had been, though.

He took the remote, not moving away from me, not taking his arm away though his other had dropped, and navigated away from the movie, asking, “What now? Parks and Rec? The Office? Another movie?”

I knew I’d be skinned alive if I slept over, but it was still early. Just a few more hours… 

I agreed with the Office. Something familiar and light.

At the mention of ‘date’ on screen, I confessed with that same sick stomach, “I have another date Sunday. A different Alpha. Jolene something. She’s a bit older.”

He sighed, “At least you won’t be in heat this time.”

I groaned, “It seems like I’ve got a date every Sunday from now to next year!”

“Just a few months.”

“No, like… an  _ entire  _ year.”

He fell silent. Steve Carell snickered on screen. “We could do the… scenting thing… again?”

“It worked last time.”

My parents called me home at around eleven, and A.W. walked me back, taking me right to my door. “Let’s have movie night again some time, I had fun,” I told him with a casual little shrug. 

He opened the door for me. Strange.

And then he skittered back down the porch steps. Stranger.

“I’ll be here Saturday night,” he told me, and I noted his voice was quieter, drawing something in me to him. Of course, I couldn’t go back to him, so I tossed my head, fluffling hair out of my eyes. “Text me.”

“Don’t I always?”

“Well, yeah, but sometimes you’re so cryptic, dude,” he pointed out with a chuckle and shrug, and I was pretty sure I was gazing at him with stupid amounts of affection seeing him do that. 

“I’ll send translated texts. From normal to dumbass.”

He flipped me the bird, a crooked smile on his face as he turned away, showing a sharp molar that caught my eye. “Night.”

“Night.”

I went in, shut the door, and leaned against it, smelling the shoulder of my shirt, bringing it to my face. Him. It put a big grin on my face as I climbed the stairs, running into my sister in the hall.

“Hey–” She frowned, coming closer, sniffing me over. “You smell funny.”

“Yeah, I was at A.W.’s. Me, him and Lenora, his sister, ordered pizza and watched A Quiet Place.”

“And you didn’t invite me?!”

“You just got back from college! Sleep a little, will you?”

She grinned. “Can’t. Going out.” Indeed, she had her eyeliner on, wings sharp. 

“Have fun.” 

She ruffled my hair then scented the top of my head, making me grumble, not actually that mad, “Alphas,” as she left.

“I heard that.”

“Good.”


	7. It's Just a Dynamic Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'm cutting the chapters pretty short so watch this story turn into a 40+ chapter thing yikers

Tomorrow night couldn’t come fast enough for me.

I texted him from dawn to dusk, wrapped up in my nest, comfortable and nervous at the same time. 

It was one in the morning when he came to meet me.

Instead of staying up on the front porch in the light, I took his wrist and brought him to the shadowed side of the house.

I was having a hard time watching him scent my sweater for tomorrow, but he carried on a conversation in low tones as normal. “I’ve read that Epsilon scent tends to have almost repellent qualities.”

I stopped biting the inside of my lip for a moment, shaking my head. “No.”

“No?” he asked, voice soft as my sweater, and I had to clamp down on my cheek with teeth again. 

“Mm mn.”

My chest hurt terribly. This didn’t feel fair for anyone, least of all me. 

When he handed me back my shirt, he sighed, “That should do it, right?” It was all I could do to nod. He picked up on my upset, patting my chest all friendly-like. “Don’t you worry, Milo. Hopefully your dad will get through this phase quickly.”

“And what, go to online dating? Just mate me off?”

“He can’t do that and you know it.”

I grumbled with a nod because it sure felt like he could. I pinched my palm, asking, “Do you wanna come over tomorrow? After?”

“Here here or just to come see you?” he asked.

“To come see me,” I repeated, the words nearly burning my damn tongue. “In the aftermath.”

“Sure.” He surprised me then, brushing his knuckles over my cheek from an arm’s length away. “It’ll be okay, Milo. We look out for each other, right? I said I’d take care of you.” It was a little too hard not to lean into his hand, eyes meeting his, trying to drink in his conviction, make it mine. The seconds were perilously long, and he had this look in his eye. We broke contact. He chuckled, “But that means you’ve gotta keep taking care of me, too.”

The next morning had the same schedule as last Sunday had had. I was learning about makeup, my mother helping me put it on, even less than last time, none of that sparkly stuff to make me look ‘dewy’. 

Jolene seemed a  _ lot  _ older than me when I met her. She wasn’t much taller than me, though, and had no parents accompanying her, which I took to assume she’d flown the nest, making me even more uncomfortable.

She was sweet in a brash way, speaking her mind, it seemed.

I don’t know when she noticed it, but she picked up on the confusing scents from me. 

“You’re… You’re an Omega, right?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t smell like one. I mean, you kind of do, but–” she wrinkled her nose. 

“I’m borrowing some clothes from my sister. She’s an Alpha.”

“Ohhh!” Without hesitation, she took my wrist from by my barely touched sandwich and sniffed into it, trying to pick up on some scent, making my skin crawl instantly, making me want to snatch my hand away from her. “Yeah, there it is,” she discerned, dropping it.

The first comment I had for my parents was, “She’s too forward. Did you see what she did?”

“It means she knows what she wants, unlike you,” my dad said as we walked to the car.

I nearly stopped where I was. He was right. I was completely adrift, no goals, no… no nothing. 

A.W. was in the area when we got home. I could smell the faintest trace of him now.

He rang the doorbell almost as soon as I texted that we were home, and the first thing he did was give me a hug, asking, “How did it go?”

I melted into him, though I bit my tongue for a moment to punish for it. “Fine, I guess. She was way too forward, though.”

I could smell my father behind me, could smell his waves of hostility for my Epsilon– It took me a moment to correct what was in my head. Friends. Nothing more. Best friend. 

A.W. seemed to linger, and the heady tension in the room rose slowly until I pulled back, trying to place myself even more between them.

“Hi, Mr. McCoy, how are you?” A.W. asked, politely, but something was… off. I didn’t know how to feel because of it.

“Fine. You?”

“Great.”

He gave us a last look before telling me, “Door open, Milo.”

I huffed, “It always is, Dad,” before going past him to get upstairs.

“You seem upset,” A.W. pointed out.

“Yeah, no shit,” I growled back. What even was that between them? Fuming, I stomped to my nest and crashed into it. A.W. stopped at the doorway, brows slightly creased as he looked at the wood, a hand on it, leaning near it. “What? You always come in.  _ Come in _ .”

“Didn’t want to stress you further,” he said quietly, dipping his head, sitting on the edge of my bed, watching as I clutched a pillow to my chest. “What did she do?”

“She grabbed my wrist, tried to smell my real scent.” His eyes widened. “I told her it was because of my sister’s clothes.” Maybe stress had been the right word to use because I was getting choked up with all the frustration. “I hate this… She was older, too. Like maybe halfway through college old.”

He didn’t seem to know what to do with my distress, fingers digging into his knees. I just hugged the pillow tighter until it wasn’t enough and I gave in with such a pathetic whine, letting it fall from my grasp, opening my arms towards him, and he practically fell into me, smushing me into the pillows and blankets, smothering me over. I shoved my head into his shoulder, into his jacket, let the pressure of him and the warm clenching of my belly take me away from the mess I was in.

I didn’t push him off, and I think he probably thought he’d accidentally made me submit to it because after a few long, blissful moments, he rolled off, tucking close to my side, rubbing his face, mumbling an apology. 

“It’s a dynamic thing,” I played off. It had to be. 

He nodded, and though I was relieved, a different part of me felt like it’d just been socked in the face. But he didn’t pull away. That was how my sister found us, my knees up to my chest, his almost the same, sides pressed together, watching a pirated movie from youtube– Mall Cop– Something corny to get me all numbed out before tomorrow. 

“Oh, wow, hey,” Cat greeted in passing, stopping by the open door. “A.W. you sure grew up.”

“Hi, Cat.”

“He never lets me into his nest,” she mumbled with a frown. 

“Cause you stink,” I retorted, not looking up. 

She rolled her eyes and moved on.

“I don’t stink?” A.W. asked, half teasing, half curious.

“Course not,” I returned, watching Blart pass out from lack of a Snickers. 

“I’ve always been told my scents conflict,” he chuckled lightly, looking up, and when I looked over I got an intoxicating whiff of him.

“I wouldn’t say that. It’s like how people like chocolate with cinnamon versus chocolate with mint, you know?”

“I smell that sweet?” he asked in surprise, lifting his wrist to sniff.

“No, you idiot, it’s a metaphor!” I blustered. “You smell like… Like concrete after it rains. Kind of chalky kind of fresh. And a little bit of smoke, but it's not bitter, it’s sweet. And kind of musty– I don’t know, I reckon I always compared it to old wood left out in the sun.” He wasn’t saying anything. I snatched a pillow and hung onto it angrily, burying the bottom half of my scowl in it. “All I’m trying to tell is you is you don’t stink.”

“You don’t stink either,” he said quietly. “Your accent and scent has been… it’s always been a comfort, you know?”

I hugged the pillow tighter, frowning harder.

I kept the rest of my thoughts strictly to myself as he leaned in, sniffing lightly at my neck that eased back and to the side on instinct. “You smell like…”

“Flowers?” I scoffed. It had been said before.

“No. Like sweet breads. You know kolache bread? You smell how that tastes.” I think I had gone red by that point. His nose was still in my neck, and my skin was just waiting for contact, waiting to shiver and shudder under the heat and pressure. “And something deeper, but less potent. Briney.”

“Briney?” Was that the ‘sultry’ scent some idiot Alpha from the next town over had told me I’d had during a fucking game? I wasn’t going to ask, that was for sure.

“Briney. Like the ocean, right?”

I nodded, and slowly turned my head his way. Our faces were close. I was trying to look everywhere but his eyes because once I did I knew I’d be trapped. “I have two dates next weekend. Another with Jolene, and one with an Alpha named Marty.”

“Marty?” he growled, startling me. 

He apologized without words, ducking his forehead to my shoulder. I nearly raised a hand to hold him there. 

The next weekend, we repeated the scenting in the shadows of my house in the middle of the night. It had just gotten cold, but I felt too warm waiting for him in sick anticipation, fingers nearly trembling on my collared shirt in my hands. 

My father told me he thought my scent was changing, asked if I was sick or alright.

The next weekend I had another date with someone new. A.W. scented my clothes again, and even left me with one of his shirts to calm my nerves. I brought it into my nest to sleep and breathed it in all night long, sleeping like a baby.

My heat started in the middle of the next week, so I was let off the hook for that time. 

The weekend after that one, it had snowed for the first time this season.

I was meeting a new Alpha. Someone actually my age apparently. 

We continued our routine.


	8. This Sucks So– Oh Shit My Dad!

I waited inside, one of the same sweaters in tow, hoping his scent would be even stronger because of the repeated scenting. Dread was also settled in my belly, my father becoming even more suspicious of me, more on edge. I didn’t know what kind of measures he’d take to be honest, but I waited anyways. 

He texted. I saw him through the blinds I had cracked.

Carefully, I eased myself outside, coat on, but unzipped. 

Before either of us spoke, we went to our side of the house. I handed him the sweater without ceremony, and he sniffed it before bringing it to his neck. “I’ve seen this one before,” he remarked, meeting my eyes with half-lidded ones. 

“I wanted to wear it again. Also, the scent might be stronger, so that’s all good.”

“Mhm,” he agreed. I liked that he agreed. 

We spoke in low tones as he covered it over in himself, and I flinched gently back as his hand brushed mine to give it back.

“Anything else?” He always asked it. 

And today I was brave. I confessed, “I don’t want to meet him,” shoulders sagging. I felt like something was taking its toll on me. Maybe that’s why I was desperate enough to ask, burning, “Scent me?”

There was no hesitation on his part, as if he’d just been waiting for the cue as he stepped into me fast, nearly knocking me off balance. 

The sigh I let out must have sounded awful, all shuddery and relieved as he ran his hands up my arms, as he ducked his head close to mine. 

It surprised me that he was not gentle in the slightest after that, rough in his first stroke against me, dragging skin so hard it stung pleasantly. I was mortified to discover I’d gone limp against him, but he growled like it was pleasing, covering me over, getting more and more frantic, breaths harsh between us. 

He ducked his face to my neck and I gasped, grabbing him even as he pushed me back against the house, feeling his piercings pressing against my scent gland, pushing more of my smell out, and he lapped the scent of it up with his tongue. 

He moved to the other side, sliding my coat off my shoulder, beginning to nip and suck at the side of my neck as my eyes watered and I rolled against him. 

My eyes went wide when his hands left me and I felt pressure and a tear, cold air teasing my skin first at the ripped shoulder of my shirt before he went in and my head leaned back against the house, legs shaking, trying to push him away, trying to pull him closer, wanting him to come get me, wanting him to stay with me. His hands were on my waist, my hips, and my insides were writhing the way I wished I could.

I whined as his tongue swiped over a bite near my scent gland, and he pulled back only to scent me again, my neck to his, his saliva smearing over our skin.

In a second of realization, he stepped away, still breathing heavily, though not as much as I, his forearm to his mouth, eyes trained on the side of my neck. He growled out a hoarse apology, and when I peeled myself off the wall, he took a few steps back in retreat.

I didn’t say anything, just looked at him, wondering what kind of a mess I looked like. Did he like what he’d made of me? Did it disgust him to do that to his best friend?

Out came another apology, more aggressive than the last, and dammit, it made my arms floppy even as I sighed out, “It’s fine.”

“It’s– Your shirt…” He’d ripped it good. I wasn’t angry. I couldn’t stop reliving it. I felt weak as I leaned back against the wall again, letting it guide me to sit against it, head lolling. “Milo?”

I wanted to tell him to do it again. To do anything he pleased and then let me. 

He crouched in front of me, swearing under his breath. 

“Give me a minute. I just need a minute,” I told him, head drooping, fingers itching to reach out for him, give him the look I tried to hide beneath my hair in the shadows. 

“Are you okay?”

“Sure I am.”

I wasn’t. I was drunk on him and it was messing with me. 

It caught him off guard him when I stood back up slowly. He followed suit. It shocked him even more when I walked back into him, pulled at his coat, tried to get him flush against me again. 

He was tense, quiet, and moved like hardening clay as he barely rested his forehead against mine.

After that, we had to say our goodbyes. He was gone before I even got in the house.

I was distant during my date, thoughts– obviously– turned elsewhere, forgetting names, hobbies, everything people were telling me, but Monday was relatively normal. 

I had classes with my friends, A.W. included.

We had lunch. Ronnie stuck bobby pins in my hair so he wouldn’t lose them later on.

I had a lacrosse game, managed the slurs due to our mixed team, checked and decked people, and our combined efforts saw us winning, and it was only after hands were shaken that I saw who was in the stands beside our cold-stiff student managers.

He walked onto the field casually as I began packing up nearly frantically, saying, “Good game.”

“How long were you there? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming.”

“Well I wasn’t, but then I had a meeting, and then I was hungry, and I was still in the area passing and saw the field lights and remembered,” he recounted mildly. Mild. It was interesting to note, especially as my Alpha teammates caught his unique scent and began to drift over, the Omegas keeping to themselves now, waiting for Coach to drive us all home after dark. “I saw you make the goal– or shot or whatever you call it,” he told me, nearly unbothered by his circling aggressors.

I laughed nervously at the compliment– if that was what it was. “Yeah.” I was the only Omega on the offensive group, so it always meant a lot to my pride when I was able to score. Swinging my bag out as I turned, I blocked Sleighton from getting to A.W., asking as we drifted onto the track, “Did you see the middie that nearly decked me? That was the highlight of the game for me.”

“And you call  _ me _ violent,” he chuckled. 

I wasn’t going to tell him I’d nearly began tearing up at how angry the middie had looked when I slipped from his defense. Maybe my fears made me run faster sometimes and that was why I was good on offense. Nevertheless, I puffed out my chest, saying, “That was our third game we won this season. I don’t think we’ll make it to state, but maybe we’ll be up there by the end of regions.”

“Schools must come a long way to compete,” he pointed out, hands in his pockets.

I smelled Opie behind me, his unease coming across as something like burnt caramel. Still, he squared his shoulders and lowered his brow. “Milo, we should go. Coach is taking us back.” When it got dark like this, coach liked to take his omega players home himself. 

“Yeah, gimme a minute.”

He circled around my bag to my side, eyes locked on A.W. as he told me, voice deep, “Not too long.”

I huffed, nearly whining in frustration, wanting to spend more time bragging to A.W. because I’d done well. I’d done well and he’d seen and it made me jumpier than a cat on a junebug on my insides. “Well what if I wanna stay longer, hm?” I pushed, calling over my shoulder.

“I can walk you back if you like,” A.W. offered, and my eyes lit up at the expected possibility I’d been fishing for.

“Milo,” Opie warned. Of course. He didn’t want me to go alone in the dark, exhausted, with the cunning, violent Epsilon. 

“Tell Coach I don’t need the ride,” I told him.

A.W. suggested, “Wanna get some hot chocolate or something?” as we walked off the field.

“Actually, call me whatever you want, but I could really go for some ice cream.”

“Ice cream?” he asked, scowling at me. “You’re an Omega. In winter. And you want ice cream?”

“Yes,” I insisted, stomach seeming to unfurl with unclenched warmth.

“If you get sick, dumbass–” he began on a frustrated sigh, but I just grinned up at him. 

That was how we ended up sitting outside the grocery store, backs to the yellow brick, me trying not to break two plastic spoons and a knife in the rock-solid half gallon of Butter Brickle, trying to coordinate how we were going to get from Homecoming back to Declan’s place for the after party and a one a.m. breakfast. 

A.W. nearly growled as our banter continued, “If you end up spraying that– that– whacha–”

“Fox’s Friend.”

“That  _ fucking _ Fox’s Friend stink, then I’m strapping you to the roof of the car. You don’t get to ride with us.”

“It’s not  _ that  _ bad,” I protested.

“Yes it is! It is!” He turned to me, vehement, “I come over that day we were being forced to go to that cotillion thing a few years back and I think I’m gonna start smelling some nice baked bread, some sweet bakery-type goods, then  _ BOOM,  _ I don’t even recognize you!” He huffed as he pulled back to himself, “Your scent is good enough, idiot. No use covering it up.”

A tad bashful as I stabbed my ice cream, I replied, “ _ I _ thought it smelled nice.”

“Yeah, cause it smelled like some pumped up Alpha that washes their ass with their own pheromones!”

Raising my eyebrows, I just kept stabbing my ice cream– … He was probably right. I still wouldn’t concede, thought. Not out loud.

He blew out a cloud of warm air in the cold and for a second, it mesmerized me. And then it made me think of smoking. It’d been a little while since I’d had a proper smoke. Maybe four days. I usually picked up my stubs around this area, but… With him with me, I’d probably get my ass whooped if I tried.

I think I was a tad resentful as I asked, “A.W. why do you hate smoking so much. No one in your family smokes.”

“Cause it gives you lung cancer and messes with your entire body: skin, hair, scent, insides, appetite– You know,” he pointed out, turning his head my way, though I wouldn’t look at him, “That’s probably why you’ve got such a small appetite.”

I gestured angrily to the carton of ice cream in my lap. 

“Yeah, yeah.” He went back to the subject. “Smoking kills people.”

“We all die,” I shrugged, “One way or another. Why not?”

He looked at me once more, his scent changing, going bitter, the honey tones lost from the smoke, and I froze. “Don’t you ever say that again.” He grew louder and I nearly flinched, “What’s wrong with you?!”

I growled into my ice cream, “Life ain’t some parade where we all get to do what we want like– like oh, fuck I don’t know– If you haven’t noticed, I’m currently living in hell and it’s about a mile thata way.” I pointed to the direction of my house. He was silent. “My dad’s getting frantic about God knows what with my dating, and I  _ fully _ expect to be mated off next year. My mom sits in the house and looks out the window all day like a goddamn shell of herself, and my sister’s so removed–” I had to stop. I knew I was about to cry. He could probably smell it under the anger. My throat closed up and I knew if I spoke again I’d sound weaker than ever. Fuck it, I didn’t care if I was anymore. 

“No one else is being mated,” he growled, looking out to the parking lot. “Not like that. Not here.”

“Yes, here!” I insisted, not caring about the crack in my voice, unable to stay silent. “Julia from seventh grade?! She dropped out as a freshman to start finding a mate and moved across the country to do it. Marco’s trying to become a doctor and his family hates him for it because they‘re old and want grandpups. Silvia’s doing the same thing I’m doing and apparently she found a match. John’s been doing what I’ve been doing for about two years now and they’ve spent thousands of dollars on plane tickets to find these Alphas! Oh, and Stephen? Yeah, his family  _ hates _ that he’s with Beatrice, that blonde Beta girl in math.” I hugged my ice cream a bit closer, trying to let the frozen cold numb my pain that had exploded like a blood blister. “I thought you’d get it.” I scrubbed away tears with my sleeves. “You’re an Epsilon for crying out loud. You know what it’s like to have people’s expectations on you.”

His voice was soft as he beckoned me, already moving closer, “Come here,” but I couldn’t handle that right now. I did not want him like that, not now with the soft eyes and the bone-melting croon. 

“No! Tell me you get it! Get mad, dammit!” I heaved a breath, a sob.

“Milo–”

“TELL ME!” I screamed down to my knees.

He was grabbing my arms, making me look at him, and though I pushed back to test the grip, I let him do it. “I  _ don’t _ ,” he snarled in frustration. “I don’t get it. What  _ you _ go through and what  _ I _ go through are completely different things.”

My heart was sinking in my chest, like he’d tied a stone to it with his words. 

“I  _ can’t _ get it, Milo.” He shook his head. “I am so far removed from anything these main dynamics go through it’s not even funny. Why would I have bothered with them?” I was limp. The words were barraging me and I didn’t know how to defend myself from this though I hung onto his every breath; he took in a deep one. “But I’ve seen what you live through. And I’m hearing you now.” I blinked rapidly, not leaving his gaze as he wiped a tear from my face, nearly asking, “Milo.”

I nodded after a moment, looking down. I never talked about this and now it had come spewing out. “This sucks.”

“I know.”

“This  _ sucks. _ ”

“I know…” He let go of me, back against the wall again as he pushed up, standing. “But let’s get you home.”

I hung my head in resignation, packed up my ice cream and stood. He took my bag without batting an eye, and flopped an arm around me, squeezing me close for a moment as we began walking out into the near-empty parking lot under the fake lights. “Two more years of high school, and then you’ll be out. Two more years.”

He was right. I knew that. But still, my doubts had been built up to skyscrapers, blocking out much of the light of a good future. Not fair at all. 

I hugged him a long time once we got to my house, ear to his chest, feeling the slight thrum of his heartbeat through my cheek, hard and somewhat fast, probably from carrying my huge bag all this way. I relaxed into him further when he accidentally– or not– scented the top of my head. 

It was supposed to have been a comforting moment, but the longer I stood there in his hold, the more frantic I seemed to become, feeling like he might, I don’t know, notice. That he might realize what was going through my head. But at the same time, I wanted to pull him inside out of the cold, run upstairs with him, and throw him into my nest, trying to warm up the cold fingers at the back of my neck, intimate, soothing. 

I did not look up when I asked, “Did you do the history homework?”

“Oh,  _ shit _ ,” he whispered, and my mouth flattened, tightened. It was for  _ history  _ for Christ’s sake and I shouldn’t have been made this  _ way _ by that hoarse whisper. 

He’d figure me out for sure–

I pulled back, scowling at him, and he huffed, “Better go do that then.”

“Yeah, you better.” I turned to go up the porch step. “See you tomorrow– text me with your answer for number three.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

But when I saw him the next morning, after he had texted, I saw him getting another answer from Abby.

“Dude, what the heck?” I asked, looking over his shoulder to see what he was writing.

“Hey, Milo,” Abby greeted.

“Hi– I thought you’d gotten it right. Weren’t you gonna share that with me?”

“He just wanted to seem smart,” Abby teased, putting a hand on her hip.

Declan came in behind her, rubbing his temples. “I could smell your tension from down the hall– Could you cool the lover’s quarrel please?”

I gaped at him for only a moment before sealing it away, but A.W. took it in stride– or it seemed like he did, silent.

I had to change the subject. “No one gave me any good feedback on what I should wear to homecoming yet. I texted three times.”

“No pics, no advice,” Abby said with a shrug.

“Then come over and see or something.”

It shouldn’t have made me that happy that it ended up being A.W. coming over after school to give me advice; in fact, I bagged practice for it. 

“Hi, Mom, I’m home and I brought A.W.” I hollered upon entering, seeing her in her usual divot in the sofa. 

“Hi, A.W.,” she greeted with a wan smile. “How’s it going?”

“Fine, thank you, Mrs. McCoy,” he replied, the model of politeness, and I just looked at him, pleased for a moment before declaring,

“He’s gonna help me put together something for Homecoming.”

“Oh, are you asking someone, sweetheart?”

I shook my head. “Outfit, Mom. No, we’re going as a group, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right.”

When we got upstairs, I sat him down in my nest before he could protest and act like he thought I, as an Omega, would hate to have someone near my nest, and went to my closet, throwing things out on the bed. “I don’t know how well my suit fits, but that’s too much anyways.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” He leaned his chin into his hand, teasing with a near-croon that made my spine shiver, “What, did you grow?”

“Shut up.” I went back to the closet, pawing through shirts. “I’ve got blue, white, black and purple.” I really did have a lot of blue. I began pulling them on, holding up pants with them, and he gave his comments. Only… One of those blue shirts wasn’t a shirt at all.

I went red as I realized it was a romper, no sleeves, soft material and a soft pattern laid over with stitching around the middle. 

“That?” he asked, not accusatory, just… curious. 

“No.” I took another look at it. The last time I’d worn this… I don’t think I’d ever worn it. It had been a Christmas gift from an Aunt back in Tennessee, telling me rompers were fashionable. On one hand, it looked fancy, on the other, soft as pajamas.

“Are you gonna try it on?”

I stared at him. He stared back.

“Close your eyes.”

I stomped to the other side of my bed, glancing over at him with his head back, eyes shut, making sure he wouldn’t look as I undressed and slipped the romper on. I swallowed, feeling my neck go hot. It was  _ super  _ soft. There was no way I’d wear this out, no way. It’d make my father too happy. But just maybe I could sleep in it.

I went back around, standing in front of the nest nervously, mouth tight, molars grinding. “Okay.”

When he opened his eyes, they travelled up and down, and I averted mine– this was the point of him being here, but  _ still  _ his gaze was raking me over. “It looks nice,” he told me. “Really nice on you.”

“Real nice as in like, you’re being nice, or–”

“No, like…” he took a breath. “Really nice.” He frowned, then met my eyes. “I know it’s not your thing, but it suits you.”

“It was a gift.”

“Oh.” He shifted in the nest– I seemed to be hyper aware of him now– “So definitely not your thing.”

“It is really comfy,” I mumbled, trying to be cool about it. “And–” I picked up a small balled tassel at my hip. “I like these.”

He nodded.

I shrugged, and kept going through shirts, not drawing attention to the fact that I was not changing back. “I think the purple shirt would be nice, but if I don’t wear it with jewelry, my dad might side-eye me.”

“Up to you.”

Eventually, I made the decision and stuck everything back in my closet. Except the romper. 

With too many groans and sighs, we lugged our backpacks nearly into the nest before I decided I didn’t like the smell of them there at all and kicked them out again with the exception of the binders we needed, and we got to finishing up some classwork and starting homework. 

I was doing my set of problems to complete A.W.’s when I heard my name hollered from down below. “MILO!” my father called, and though he wasn’t particularly angry, I jumped and stiffened nonetheless. 

A.W. raised his head over mine, looking to the open door and I got a stronger whiff of his scent. The tones of hostility in it because of my reaction to my father were what prompted me to tumble out of the nest and fall into my closet, dropping the romper, fingers shaking, breath fast as I changed in the darkness. 


	9. Number Six

“MILO!” he shouted again, his impatience making me jump. 

I tore out of the closet without giving A.W. a second look. “COMING!” I screamed, nearly tumbling down the stairs, tripping over my own damn toes, stomach ready to heave itself up onto the carpet as I stopped on the bottom step, not quite level with his height from here. 

He took a great big whiff. “Milo McCoy you reek like that Epsilon, what in  _ hell’s name  _ were you doing that it caused you so long to get down here, huh?”

“Homework! We were doing homework!”

“Tell him to go home.”

“WHAT?!”

“I mean it. You two spend way too much time together as is,” he growled, “And he can’t get in the way of your future. If he’s distracting you from school, from your goals of finding a mate, then–”

“–I’VE TOLD YOU! I DON’T WANT TO GET MATED, I DON’T WANT TO BE LOOKING FOR AN ALPHA!” Shaking with rage, I snarled, “I went along with it in the–”

“ _ Milo _ .” I couldn’t help but cower as he used the Alpha voice on me, as my knees unlocked themselves and it really did feel like I was going to throw up on the steps. “Get him out.”

I shut my eyes tight. Counted to five.

I rose, unable to look him in the eyes that were so similar to my own, turned, and hefted myself back up the steps.

I could smell A.W., a dangerous kind of threat that was only now beginning to waft down the stairs. If my father smelled it–

I ran up the turn in the staircase, ramming right into him, hissing an inch from his face, though everything told me to get away, “What’re you doing!? He’ll smell you and–”

Barely controlled and low, he said, “I just want to talk…”

I pushed him back, back up the stairs. “No you don’t, fuckface, I can smell it on you!” My mother’s calming pheromones finally hit me, though they didn’t do much good trapped between a righteously angry Alpha and a vengeful Epsilon. I was too tense to cry. “Come on, let’s get your stuff, see if he’ll let me walk you out.”

He let me push him back to my room reluctantly and gathered his things as I stood by the door, nearly too afraid to go near him for fear I’d end up smelling more and more like him. 

“He’s not right, Milo,” he ventured quietly, looking past me. “I can smell it.”

Colder fear began to take hold in my chest. I didn’t argue. He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder before he passed me, and I followed him downstairs, where my father and my mother were both sitting, quiet, tense. 

“Mrs. McCoy,” he greeted, “Mr. McCoy”

“Goodbye, A.W.,” my mother said with one of her weaker smiles. He couldn’t seem to return it. 

My father nodded to him as if–

Suddenly A.W. was asking, “Is Milo still going to be able to come to Homecoming with us?”

My mother glanced to my father. “Why– Why wouldn’t he be–”

“I heard.”

My father stood up with a lengthy sigh, and, for some reason had more tact, more decorum than he ever did with me as he walked right up to him and said, “You’ve been a good friend to Milo. But you two are on different paths. You can understand that, right?” I gripped my pant leg. A.W. was not looking away, not responding. “It’s different for you,” he pointed out. “But in this world, when Omegas and Alphas–”

“I’d like to leave now, Mr. McCoy, but I’d like to leave knowing Milo isn’t going to be punished for hanging around someone like me.”

“Put some distance between you and my son,” he said, and I don’t know if it was my imagination that he was leaning in. “Then you’ll see.”

I was too wound up to even speak as I took A.W.’s sleeve, tugging lightly.

I was too wound up to tell him goodbye.

I’d see him at school. We still had school.

I watched him from the open front door, letting the cold air in, and finally found the courage to ask, “Am I going to Homecoming?”

A beat passed. 

“No,” my father replied. “Not after all this.”

“Kenneth,” my mother implored. But she did not stand. Didn’t even move. 

I took myself back up to my nest that still smelled of him and sat unmoving until he texted, checking in, asking if I was okay and all that. I think he meant if my father hit me. My stomach hurt as I told him I was fine. I wasn’t going to Homecoming, but I was fine and I’d see him at school, right?

The next morning, I read the texts I hadn’t opened during the night, most of them from A.W. Between the hours of one and two in the morning.

My father had called his parents, raising the complaint. 

One of his parents was blaming him. The other, his dynamic. But apparently he’d gotten real chewed out and I saw it written into him when I got to school, seeing my friends there in the cafeteria, Abby eating some breakfast, the rest of them not seeming to know what to do with the Epsilon, removed from them by a couple of seats.

I went to him, and without a second thought, I hugged him.

He hugged me back, face buried in my stomach, arms around my hips as he sighed. 

“What happened?” Linus asked quietly.

I pursed my lips before replying, “His parents chewed him out. Pretty badly, too.” From what he’d recounted over text, it had had the potential to go south. There had nearly been an emergency room visit. I ran a hand through his hair as he turned his head to breathe, stopping at the back of his head, holding him there, rubbing with my thumb. 

After it seemed like A.W. was not going to answer questions, the table moved on, though Hannah and Matthew offered a hand to his shoulder, laying it on him for a few good warm moments. I didn’t even think about letting go. And among the hum of the loud voices around us, I ducked by his head and whispered for his ears alone, “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.” And I knew from yesterday from the confrontation with my father that he had my back, too.

As the early bell rang and chaos ensued, he looked up at me. Our faces were too close; I couldn’t–

I gasped as he scented me with a single stroke. The motion made it look like an accident, but the  _ pressure– _

He looked me in the eye again, as if gauging my reaction, then did it on the other side, and my mouth still hadn’t closed. 

“Sorry,” he grumbled, standing, “It calms me down.”

I hadn’t picked up on the anger rolling off of him before that. So  _ that _ was why our friends hadn’t approached. 

“Mhm,” was all I could manage as we went our separate ways. In the classroom, trying to focus, all I could think about was his neck on mine, his scent on me, and how I was going to kill him for making my skin tingle this badly at the thought of him.

The next week passed drearily as I tried to limit how close I was with my best friend, always wondering if I smelled like him when I got home, rubbing snow on my scent glands just in case– not that it would help much. Especially with him. 

I had a heat coming, and I supposed that wasn’t a very good thing seeing as it would start after Homecoming. The potential for it to start early was high. With the atmosphere that would be at that dance, with A.W. likely close to me? Very high.

It should have worried me how I took it in stride, planning to sneak out regardless. It wasn’t like my father ever expected me to be that kind of son, so he wouldn’t expect anything.

Everything was heightened as I snuck downstairs that evening, left the note in my mother’s couch crease, and eased on out the door, Declan and A.W. waiting on me a little ways down the road to take us all over to Abby’s, who’d be driving the lot of us to the rented event center. 

“No Fox’s Friend?” A.W. asked as soon as he saw me coming around the bend, hands in his pockets, the smirk pushing any kind of intelligent response out of my head as I took in how he looked.

“What’s that?” Declan asked, a little ways away, standing on a dry patch of road so as not to ruin his shoes presumably.

“Cologne,” A.W. responded. I was still silent as I went to them. “You were right,” he told me, “the purple is nice.”

As if he wasn’t standing there in a dark blue shirt looking like some kind of movie star with his hair slicked back. I fumbled at my head nearly unconsciously; I should have done something with my hair.

It was easier to focus– rather, to let go– when I got ambushed by Ronnie tackling me into a hug at the door, managing to accidentally scent me so slightly. “Milo! You look great!”

Beaver pulled him back, and Hannah stepped forward to hug me before Abby could tackle Declan; I knew she could manage it in heels. 

For everyone except Abby and Hannah, drinks were cracked open, courtesy of Abby’s older sister. They’d make it easier to stand the beige walls and pitiful streamers of the hall. 

I can say with ease that I regret it now. Yes, everything ended up fine, but this was the long, hard road I was taking. One that started with booze and an impending heat that was screwing with my head. 

I must have been more than a little tipsy once we actually went to the dance because Hannah and Linus had their arms linked with mine, and A.W. was giving me these funny looks. Ronnie didn’t care, though, snatching up way too many glow sticks and cracking them with his mouth before waving them about, letting loose a whoop that went nearly unnoticed under the track of the bass. 

I tried to mimic him, but Hannah held me back a moment before spinning me out into the dancing underclassmen, setting me loose as I cackled maniacally, not wanting my buzz to begin to wear off just yet.

To be honest, I only remember some things about that Homecoming dance.

One: Standing too close to the speakers blaring music and trying to yell back into them.

Two: Trying to imitate something like a salsa dance with Linus.

Three: Being knocked over by Sleighton as he and his crew rolled in even later, and A.W. scooping me up off the floor, nearly getting into a fight.

Four: Ronnie trying to get the glow stick juice off my face with his spit and thumb.

Five: A.W. trying to do it.

He had some tissue he was using, trying to rub it off my face with sheer force alone until I whined at him that it hurt, fingers curled into the front of his shirt, slightly damp, just like mine was. We were close. Just like I wasn’t acting like myself, he wasn’t either, running a hand down my side, looking conflicted, looking so damn good in the half darkness I couldn’t pull away. 

It took a while for me to realize why every Alpha and Beta near me was eyeing me up and down, and why A.W. was giving me that look that made me want to cling onto him and beg him for things he couldn’t do.

Number six: I began my heat.


	10. Make It Feel Better

I felt slick inside my pant leg, going down the inside of my thigh, and my fingers only clamped onto his front tighter, realizing in a far away part of my head that this was what had happened a while back with a heat; him causing it to come early, that is.

It almost made me mad– he was no Alpha, why should he get such strong pheromones?

But I didn’t have time to do or act on much of anything because I then decided I wanted to dance.

All I can say now is that when my friends told me what I was doing, I felt awful. 

It wasn’t long after that somehow, A.W. was taking me home in Abby’s car. I was humming breathily to music that I’d heard, squirming on the towel I had to sit upon. Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to ditch the pants and let the towel catch the slick? I was already so hot and sticky from old and new sweat. I tried undoing my belt, but A.W. used his voice on me to ask, “Milo, what’re you doing?”

“‘M hot,” I complained. “And my pants are all wet.”

“Don’t take your pants off, idiot, you’re not home yet!”

Sulking, I stared out the window, biting the insides of my mouth, pursing and unpursing my lips again and again as I glanced over at him. I whined, “A.W….”

He swallowed, shut his eyes as we came to a red light. “...What?”

“I blame you for this,” I pouted, rubbing at my stomach.

“Hah?”

I took a big whiff of him in, relishing the scent of him on my tongue, mouth too wet at the prospects. “This happened a while ago, too. I was a ways off from my heat and you made it come early.” I leaned over the console, twisting my head, looking up at him, waiting with a wiggling bum to see what he’d do, a part of my heat-addled,  _ drunk _ brain wanting him to take responsibility. 

He pushed on the gas again slowly. “That’s not how this works I’m pretty–”

“How would you know! You don’t do this! No, you  _ cause  _ this.”

He brought a hand to his throat and I couldn’t look away as he loosened his tie, taking a deep breath, then rolling down the car windows. “I’m sorry.” I butted my head into his arm, panting softly, getting my teeth into his shirt, gnawing lightly, unable to help my next whimper, body going rigid then loose as his scent spiked. 

“A.W…” I moaned from around his elbow. He was shaking. I think I must have thought he was upset, because I tried to comfort him, taking his hand, nuzzling into it, scenting his knuckles, his wrist. I wanted him to stop driving, to pay attention to me. I took a small breath just before I closed my mouth around one of his fingers.

“ _SHIT–_ ” he hissed, the sound of it curling into my belly, spreading heat everywhere. He wasn’t telling me to stop, though, and when I looked to the side, I could see how he was straining in his pants, just like me. “ _Milo–_ ” God he sounded so good when he was aroused, almost like I’d always imagined him to sound. He was shaking heavily as he withdrew his hand, but I caught him again with a dissatisfied whine and began bringing it down to my– “Milo, I’m driving!” he huffed out, pulling back again. 

I ground down onto the towel, sighing, draped over the console, but I didn’t touch him again, touching my own mouth instead, squirming and shifting often. 

He pulled up on the road in front of my house, not going on the gravel driveway, and stopped the car. 

I sat up, waiting expectantly, watching him.

He had his forehead on the wheel, eyes open, taking in small panting breaths. 

I made a small noise, needing to get his attention, and when he looked up, pleasure unfurled in me. 

Without another second to lose, he was undoing his seat belt, leaning over to me, hands pressed up on my seat, and burying his face in my neck. 

My knees went up, trembling slightly, feeling a dribble coming from the corner of my mouth, moaning something shaky to have him against me in some way. 

He was kissing my neck, growling in response to the sounds I made as if encouraging them, teeth flashing as he bit at me and rubbed his scent all over me. My hands were on his head, feeling where he moved, creeping down to his wet back, feeling how tense the muscles were there and turning my head into him.

He wasn’t delicate at all when he licked up my saliva, and I tried to kiss at him.

He agreed to it.

I groaned into his mouth out of surprise, eyes going wide before closing with reactionary tears. It was messy, mind blowing, and when he pulled back, a hand at my throat, I watched the trail of spittle glimmer between us. 

He kissed me again.

I went completely limp as he scented me all over, eyes half-lidded in this half light, watching the brightness of his eyes, the tendons in his neck. 

I’d never thought I’d be knotted in the front seat of my friend’s car by my other friend, but I wanted it nonetheless, wanted it bad enough for the tears to not stop as he devoured me, but didn’t fill me. 

He heaved a curse by my ear, sucking on it before going back down, letting out a pleased snarl deep in his chest at our scents mixing together. 

I knew. I loved it, too.

I turned my head his way, mouth open for him to kiss. He snaked his head in. And then he bit my lower lip.

It was just the right angle and he had enough force behind it to make it bleed, and I let out a cry that was half pleasure, half startled pain, fingers digging into his back. That was what shocked him out of this. That was what made him pull back from me, his chest heaving, and press his back to his own seat. His voice was gravelly when he said, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

I didn’t particularly mind as long as he kissed it lots to make it feel better.

He got out of the car violently, and adrenaline pulsed through me, making me go weak, so ready for this moment I’d been waiting on for  _ months _ .

My senses slowly came back to me with confusion as I saw him scrubbing his head with snow, messing up his hair, and looking up with a red face.

“Milo, you need to get out of the car and get inside.”

I didn’t want to, but I did, hanging onto his shoulder happily as we walked to the front porch. At least I wouldn’t be knotted in Abby’s car.

He pulled at my shirt collar and I bared my neck, lips parting, waiting for another good scenting before we went inside. He scowled and cursed instead, fingers running over where he’d bitten and sucked before. 

I put my arms out for him, and though he hesitated, he went right into them after a moment, giving me a good scenting again that I enjoyed with closed eyes and sounds I couldn’t control anymore.

Suddenly, he pulled away, his forearm to his mouth. 

He ducked, got the key under our mat, and opened the door for me.


	11. Pheromone-Induced Amnesia?

Except, once I was inside, he shut it again. And then he locked it.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance, rubbing a palm to my neck, shivering, then made my way upstairs.

I wouldn’t remember all of these events in order the next morning.

The headache wasn’t helping, pounding at my temples, my lower half nearly burning. 

Excitement and affection rolled through me in a giant wave as I snuggled into his jacket, a smile coming to my face. I opened my eyes, made ready to kiss him, but… He wasn’t here. It was just me alone in my nest with his jacket pressed up to my face, the morning sun damn near blinding.

I sat up, looking at my naked body, trying to check my behind. I ended up bumping my head on the windowsill, shouting, “OW!” The headache  _ really  _ didn’t help. 

It felt like only a matter of minutes had gone by before my mother and father were at the door, peeking their heads in, my mother’s seeing me first, gasping.

My father was taking in the scents.

I still felt disoriented, but pulled a blanket over me quickly. I knew something was wrong.

“Milo,” my mother whispered in near horror.

“Milo, what the  _ fuck  _ did you do last night,” my father snarled, storming in, shoving past my mother, filling the whole room with his anger. 

I panicked–

I couldn’t remember exact things–

I remembered the dance, heat, A.W…

I snarled back at my father standing over me, too close to me, “I don’t fucking remember I was  _ drunk! _ ”

My mother was in serious distress in the doorway. My breathing was coming in fast.

My father crouched in front of me, voice raised, “You go out, get drunk, go into heat, and spend it with that fucking Epsilon–” I flinched as he nearly made to strike. “I don’t have to deal with this or your pups,” he snarled, now under his breath. “I can smell it on you.”

And they left after what had only been a few seconds, leaving me shaking in my nest without a clue as to what that meant.

I stood, blanket around me, and sat in a pile on the floor next to my clothes from last night, digging my phone out of my pocket, calling A.W.

“ _ Milo, _ ” he greeted.

It was difficult hearing his voice over the phone– my heat had only just begun– but the fear made me a bit more lucid, asking, “A.W…. A.W. what happened last night  _ exactly.  _ My dad’s yelling about pups– I didn’t think–”

“ _ We didn’t– I– We didn’t. _ ”

“He says he can smell it!” I bit my mouth, wincing at the sore place he’d nipped it last night, body filling with heat and sickness at the memory. “Can you come tell him– Can you get your parents to tell him he’s not–”

“ _ I can’t… They can, I can’t. _ ”

“Why!?”

“ _ I’m in rut. _ ” I covered my mouth with my free hand, slumping over. “ _ I hear my mom on the phone– I think it’s with your dad. _ ”

I was reeling forward, dropping my phone, clutching my shirt to my mouth to cover my vomit, shaking when it was done.

I could hear his voice tinny on the receiver, desperate, until it was cut off by another voice. I dragged myself back to my nest, holding the phone close, moaning, “A.W.”

His voice was hoarse when he said, seeming much closer with his jacket fisted up in my hand. “ _ She thought I was trying to call to you over her phone. I have to go– I have to– _ ”

He hung up.

I was left sitting there, the sun shining on my stinking pile of bile as if to mock me as I held my knees to my chest and moaned into them as I sobbed.

In the coming days, I took a few different pregnancy tests. All negative.

That didn’t mean it wouldn’t show up, though. 

I called him often, but we couldn’t talk about what had happened, couldn’t pick it apart, so affected, so preoccupied with the uncertain future.

I tried to remember– or imagine– what his knot in my would feel like as I rode out my heat in the next three days, cut short by my intense distress. After the heat was gone I was left with only dread, not sleeping, unable to now. 

I hadn’t seen my father in days, holed up in here. My mother left me food and water and helped me get to the shower. 

She came in the day it faded away, sitting on my bed, smoothing down the comforter, asking, “Milo, do any of your friends– is there a place you can go?”

I went cold. “Mom?”

“Honey, listen, it’s only– I don’t know if–” she sighed, unable to say more.

In no uncertain terms, later on, my father came up to me, told me, stinking of fury, “You got yourself into this mess. We’re not dealing with your consequences. Get out.”

I tried not to cry in front of him. I really did try.

I tried not to cry as I walked out with two bags, wondering what would happen to me if I tried to come back, wondering what would happen if I was with pups. 

I had places to go, but I didn’t want to be at any of them. 

Instead, I walked through town, the streets empty on a work day. I tried to smoke, but, feeling heaviness in my belly as I brought the cigarette to my mouth, I nearly broke down again at the idea of life inside me. I didn’t know what to think anymore.

That afternoon and into the evening, I sat under the bridge that had been shut down long before I was born, my bags beside me, and I stared at the cold concrete, wondering how long I could stay right here, if I could let the cold seep into my bones and overtake me and what life I did have inside me.

Instead, I did what I always did, and now was beginning to hate myself for: I called A.W.

“ _ Milo _ .”

I told him, crashing a fist to my forehead, “My heat ended, so they kicked me out. They still think I might be pregnant, and–”

“ _ Come over. Come stay with me.” _

My head was reeling. “But, your moms– I don’t know if they’d like–”

“ _ No. Come. _ ” I couldn’t tell if it was him using his Epsilon voice, coaxing me into submission or if I just needed something to believe in. “ _ Or, where are you? I’ll come get you. Do you have clothes? Other stuff? _ ”

“Yeah, I got away with two bags.”

“ _ I’ll come. Where are you? _ ” he asked, desperation showing through.

“You wouldn’t like it if I told you.” 

I hung up. I couldn’t do more than stare down at the shriveled weeds trying to grow in the small patches of snow blown under here, brown and dying however hard they tried. My rear was numb as I stood, and it was so very hard to stand, to make myself move. A duffel slung over each shoulder, I grit my teeth and started on my way.

I hesitated before ringing his doorbell. Would I be turned away even now? What if this meant they’d kick A.W. out, too? Would they do that?

I rang the doorbell, heart pounding, and in no time at all, the door was flung open. He stared at me a single second, chest heaving once, then he crashed into me and I fell apart, sobbing, clutching at him, my knees shaking, nearly buckling. I couldn’t shake this feeling: complete rejection by those who were supposed to love me no matter what. That was what was dragging me down so physically, why A.W. had to support me upright. 

He held me tight, nose at my ear, petting my head, crooning softly, his own kind of heartbreak in it. 

He looked over his shoulder after a long while, then wiped my nose with his sleeve and brought me inside out of the cold, helping me shuck my bags.

I nearly balked at the scent of an Alpha despite it being similar to A.W.’s scent: his mother. She was the one to approach me and ask quietly, “They kicked you out?” I could hear what she was really saying: ‘What kind of parents would do that?’ For an Omega, if you had nowhere else to be, it might end up being a death sentence.

A.W. had an arm around me, said close to my ear, “You’ll stay here.” He drew me over to the sofa where I could finally crash, blinded by tears. 

His Beta mother came over from the kitchen, set down a glass of water on the table in front of me.

Lenora sat in a chair, staring at nothing, sending out calming pheromones.

It was a silent vigil they kept over me, the only sounds my sobbing, A.W.’s crooning, and his mother’s. I still wouldn’t stop. Lenora came over to the couch, sitting on my other side, and I felt A.W.’s scent change slightly; he nearly raised his hackles, but then, as if seeming to realize she was just trying to help when she came close and rested a hand on my shoulder, calmed. 

It was still quiet when I finally calmed down enough to sip some water. 

“Milo, sweetheart?” the Alpha asked, “Are you hungry? Have you been out for long?”

I shook my head. “I left this morning.”

She seemed relieved at that. Lenora spoke up. “You can sleep with me or we can get you set up out here if you like.”

I nodded to the second. “I might keep you up otherwise.”

Slowly, they continued going about business, A.W.’s moms pulling out materials for a bed or nest, but A.W. and I did not move. He was rubbing the back of my neck, and I had my head dipped forward, blowing my nose every so often before returning to nuzzle into his chest. When no one else was in the room, he started up his crooning again. He scented the top of my head lightly.

“Maybe… Maybe we shouldn’t,” I suggested, but didn’t pull away. He did, though, quietly.

I went back on my word minutes later, reaching up to him, taking initiative, rubbing my neck along his, ashamed at the soft kind of purr that came from me. He held me close, returning the scenting, and I let him take over, exhausted.

“Thank you,” I murmured, “I don’t know what I’d do.”

He sandwiched my face in his hands. “Hey, you’re my best friend.”

“A.W., if I am pregnant–”

“How could you be, though?”

“I dunno, what if we didn’t remember or…”

“I feel like I’d remember.”

I thunked my forehead to his collarbone. “I knew I was coming up to that time. I knew it and then I went out anyways and I drank and who knows what might have happened if it hadn’t been you.”

He swallowed. “We’d look out for you. We wouldn’t let that happen.” Then he pulled back from me, asking, suggesting a new, but damnably related, topic, “You… You said I put you into heat.”

I rubbed at my face, getting away from him. I had, didn’t I? “Mm. Yeah. It’s happened some times where I’m not due for a while and then I hang out with you and it starts.”

“Um… I’m sorry,” he apologized, fingers digging into his knee. “I don’t know how that would happen.”

“Me neither.” 

Because he wasn’t an Alpha.

I swallowed hard, then did my own apologizing, “I’m sorry I put you into rut. I’m sorry about all of it.”

“It’s not your fault; it’s the pheromones. It makes us do things we don’t want.” 

That did not make me feel better. At all. “You’re my best friend, too,” I told him, needing to reaffirm it, looking up at him. 

He smiled over at me, running a hand over my head, bringing it back to him, closing his eyes as he rested our foreheads together for a good while. When he pulled back with a breath, he asked, “Now, how can we distract you?”

I didn’t have the strength or energy for much else besides a movie, so he helped me build a nest, and we stayed there until it was time for dinner and I sat quietly at the table with them all, pushing around my beef stew, trying to choke down what I could before we went back to the couch.

When we were going back to it, I had a hand on my lower belly. Dark thoughts were popping up like fucking daisies in there telling me, in contrast to the maternal instinct to eat for growing pups, that I should starve myself and them along with me. But I saw him looking there. I smelled something from him that made something bittersweet rise up in me. I wanted him to scent me. I wanted that to be all we did every day from here on out until I couldn’t tell what was my scent and what was his because they fit so perfectly together, like puzzle pieces… 

Course, I couldn’t tell him that. Not when I was having a pregnancy scare with him, my best friend. I hid it very badly, but still insisted to myself that he couldn’t find out how I really felt; I just didn’t want to lose what we had, not when I was surviving on it now. 

Cause, dammit, I loved him. Had for some time now.

When it grew late, I quietly asked him to scent some pillows and blankets for when he’d go to bed and I’d go to sleep here, so he did, and it sure was something to be leaning on his arm while he scented things for me. The movie ended abruptly it seemed, only because I wasn’t paying attention, and he muted the credit music, watching the names scroll pensively. 

I yawned.

“Ready to sleep?”

“I’ll try.”

He turned the TV off and surprised me by laying down with me, getting himself comfy, and apparently I was part of that equation.

I nearly told him what I was thinking: He was too good to me. 

It surprised me how quickly I fell asleep with him, but it seemed I woke up just as quickly, his Beta mom crouching by us, a hand on each of us. “Boys, it’s time for school.”

A.W. swallowed, ducking his head down.

I nodded, fully awake in contrast.

As I sat up, he slithered on over closer against me, looping his arms around my waist, pushing his head into my lap, my hip. I landed a hand on his head, but when I realized his moms were drinking coffee in the kitchen, I nearly squirmed away from him, the back of my neck going red. 

But he had such cute bed head… 

And his mouth was so cute.

And his arms felt so nice around me, that I let him stay.

It was only after getting ready for school that I decided I wasn’t going. And no one could persuade me otherwise. No one tried, actually. A.W. attempted to stay with me, but his mothers wouldn’t allow that, so he went off alone, and his moms headed to work, and it was just me and Lenora.

She made more breakfast silently, and, without even asking, left a plate for me on the coffee table as I sat huddled in the nest, unable to do much besides think and feel worse and worse.

I worked up the courage to ask her for a pregnancy test. It was something they didn’t have on hand, but she actually went out with me to the store to go get it, and stuck by me outside the bathroom at the house as I ran another negative test.

“I think it might be because your parents thought you were pregnant that you think you are,” she pointed out. “How many of those have you taken?”

I was silent, shrugging, then admitting, “A lot,” the smell of pee strong in my hands, familiar by this point.

“Do you remember having sex? With A.W. or otherwise?”

I shook my head. “But I was a little drunk. And my heat was bad, so maybe–”

“You need to quit worrying. Stop taking those tests twice a day. You can take one tomorrow and the next day, but then take a break, okay?” I nodded. She gave me a quick, soft hug. 

A.W. slept with me on the couch in my nest that night as well, and, in the morning, when he went to school, I tried calling my mom, tried telling her where I was and that I was okay and definitely not pregnant. She didn’t pick up, which annoyed me, but I left her a message. She never did call back, but that night she texted me, saying she was so relieved and glad to hear that and she’d told dad and he was relieved, too, and thought he’d overreacted now.

It was left at that because I didn’t reply; I felt like a wuss because I was too scared to.

My safe haven was being disturbed. 

I went back to school the next few days left in the week, and made it to Saturday safely. It was then that my mother acted as a mouthpiece for my father in saying they were ready to ‘exchange’ apologies, and then things would go back to ‘the way they were’ though they’d still need some time for me to ‘win back’ their trust.

“Their trust!” I crowed to A.W., sitting on the bathroom counter as he brushed his teeth. “What about mine, dammit! They think they can make it better just like that?” I shook my head. “I don’t even know if I  _ want _ to go back... What do you think?”

“Give me a minute to think about it,” he mumbled before moving on to shaving. That was odd for him. Then again there were so many factors. I leaned back, rested my head on the mirror behind me, closed my eyes. 

Grief flushed through me fast as the water was going down the drain. Things would go back to the way they were, huh? 

He picked up on it fast, a croon coming out of him before he even touched me. He put down his razor, put a hand on my knee, then told me, “You’re in control this time. You do what’s best.”

I huffed a sigh, the weight of being responsible for myself a burden I was still getting used to.

The next day was when we both realized that I wasn’t in control at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So everything's a bit clouded, ain't it? Damn pheromones.


	12. Proposition Him

My parents showed up at the door and were invited in with welcoming smiles, but hostile energy. 

My mother rushed to me, took my hands, and looked me over, greeting me with, “Hi, sweetheart.”

I held myself still. I could feel A.W.’s tension behind me, his instincts getting all worked up in response to my own.

“Hi, Mom.”

My dad was still greeting A.W.’s parents. Then he laid eyes on me. I didn’t approach him, and he did not come towards me. 

A.W.’s Beta mom ushered us to sit. I noted how close A.W. was to me. I noted how A.W.’s Alpha mom was leaned towards my father in intrigue– like she might have had for a bug she was about to smush under her shoe. 

“Well, son,” he began, “Where do we start?”

I had more gumption than I gave myself credit for, lifting my chin, “How about kicking your son out when you think he’s pregnant?”

He didn’t even take a moment to think about his reply, spreading his broad hands. “We were disappointed, mad, but you belong with us. We’re your parents.”

I did not respond to that. I felt my mother’s sadness. I tried not to let it affect me. She had done nothing to stop this. A.W.’s Beta mom suggested nonchalantly, “Would it be so bad to let him stay here. Where he’s more comfortable?”

My father gave her a look, and her mate released the promise of some powerful scents, getting his attention again. He asserted, “You don’t have custody over him. We do. Now that things can get back to normal, there are still responsibilities we have towards him.”

No one said anything in response to that and I loved how it mocked him. 

“Ready to be parents again, huh?” Lenora said, barely looking up. 

My father retorted, “Every family has falling outs.” He directed his voice to me. “You’ll be back. If you don’t come back, we’ll make sure you do. As parents we can’t let you ruin your future like this.”

“Like what?” I asked.

He was quiet.

“Like what?”

No one said anything to that either. 

One of the last things he left us with was, “If you aren’t back by next weekend, we’re going to have to take some more drastic measures.”

Still, even after they left, I couldn’t bring myself to eat dinner because of that threat. The law, the unlawful? I didn’t know what he meant, but I was frantically trying to think of ways to make myself an undesirable son once more, one they didn’t want anything to do with.

The idea didn’t come to me until I was laying in our nest that night– me and A.W.’s. He was fast asleep, breaths puffing out rhythmically. I was propped up, watching him, the T.V.’s blue glow playing across his features; he had this weird thing where he looked so angry when he slept, eyebrows relaxing down into his eyes. 

He was my best friend. He’d said he’d look out for me, take care of me, like I’d done for him.

How far would he go? Would he regret it? Do it out of a sense of duty?

And even if I did suggest it and followed through, would it be enough?

The police could take me away from a friend, but would not be able to separate me from my mate… Right?

During all of this process, I was trying to be objective, trying to weigh my options. I could suggest this union. I could run away, pray my family did not find me. I could try to hang onto my sister in college. The first was the best by far, so I was silent and focused on observing when we went to school that day, trying to put more emotional (and physical) distance between us to do it. I don’t think he noticed early in the morning. I noticed, though when Valerie, an Omega, and Fred, her Beta friend, approached him, apparently in a class together I was not in. It was difficult for me to witness what I saw. I think she’d been afraid of him in the beginning; not anymore it seemed, not at all, tucking her hair behind her ear, sending up shy little smiles as they talked about homework. It made my veins feel like they were filled with bees. It made me jumpy. It was a struggle to look the other way from her growing crush and his obliviousness. I wondered if they could smell us on each other, and that was the only thing that made me able to walk away. He had, in fact, scented me this morning before school, as a comfort and a precaution. 

I had decided which option was right for me.

I waited a day, and then another, but with the next weekend coming so close, I didn’t have enough time to be bashful about anything. 

On Wednesday, I skipped lacrosse practice, as the season was drawing to an end. 

“Not feeling up to it?” A.W. asked me, hovering close. 

Determination steadied me. “I need to talk to you.”

I assumed he knew the subject: my predicament. We only had a few more days left before this so called ‘action’ was set to befall me. 

We were relatively silent as I led him back through town, into his neighborhood.

“Milo?” he asked as I passed up the house, going to the backwoods, the snow-covered field behind his home. 

“Not here,” I admitted, not looking at him, wondering how desperate I had to be to ask for this, anxiousness coating my insides. He followed my trail through the snow and I kept looking back at him. The treeline was dark and green; I stopped just inside of it, sitting down on a stump I brushed the snow off, dropping my backpack to the snowed ground with a crunch. “I think my Dad’s gonna try to get me back. He told us that.” I picked at a flower that shouldn’t have been growing in this cold, small with a long pale stem and some light purple petals. 

He let out a shaky sigh, nodding. 

“I… Thought of an option. So he wouldn’t. So I could do what I want.”

He was silent, listening. 

“Because it’s either this or I’ve got to drop off the map some way. And you’re the only one I’d consider this for.” I looked down at my cold, red hands, “‘Cause you’re my best friend, you know?” I swallowed hard, standing, twisting that small purple flower between my fingers. I glanced up. He took a few steps closer, smelling out my nerves. I took a step toward him, too, sticking out the flower, looking him in the eye. “Mate me.”

His eyes widened on mine, his grip on his bag grew loose. He came closer, sniffing around me, asking hesitantly, “Milo are you about to go into h–”

“I’m not.” I was determined not to cry, not to sway him like that, but… I didn’t know what I’d do if he rejected this, I didn’t know where I’d end up, how I’d end up without him, and it scared me to death.

“Are you–” he cut himself off. He knew the seriousness of the situation. I hoped he could read my severity. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “You do know that you’re supposed to mate someone you love.”

“I’m not going to get that option. So why not my best friend?” 

My hand was still out with the flower, frozen that way, it seemed, and he glanced to it. “And, you’re okay with this?”

“Are you?”

He was looking back to the flower, licking his lips. “I’d do it. If it made you happy and feel safer, I’d do it.” 

I couldn’t leave it there. “Could you be satisfied with this?” With me. I probably wasn’t the kind of mate he’d had in mind. 

“I would.” As the silence drew on, he took my hand in his, the flower rising from it. “I don’t want you to regret this.”

“Please.” Surprise crossed his features. My lips felt numb saying the word, ready to say it over so many times, holding back from it.

Then he nodded. Simple and clean. I let out a breath of relief, trying to hide the slight smile on my face, trying to make sure guilt wouldn’t rise up and claim me. Surprisingly enough, as he turned my hand, lacing my fingers with his, and drew even nearer, nothing like that even touched me. I leaned up. He pressed a quick kiss to my cheek before hugging me with his other arm, saying near the side of my head, “I’m here for you.”

“I know. Thank you.” 

I’d counted on it.

Just as gently, he scented me, and I him.

Even more of a commitment was on the horizon.

I didn’t know if I should tell him how happy this made me. I didn’t know if I should tell him how  _ so _ okay I was with this arrangement. 

We decided it would not be tonight, though we both knew we didn’t have that much time with how many declined calls I had from both parents, from even my sister. 

While he slept soundly beside me, I was awake, thinking at any point, a cop car could roll up, ready to haul me back. 

It was the next day we decided. I was nervous at school both because of the threat of the law and for the coming events. He stayed close. During lunch he was right up against me, doing all manner of things for me, from bringing me lunch to shielding me even more in the halls. Neither of us really knew how to go about this without anything else spurring us on, but I took the suggestion for a nap that afternoon, since we technically did have school the next day; if we’d go… well that was to be decided. I didn’t know how his parents would react, but he wasn’t too bothered by it obviously. 

I was on the lower half of his bed when I woke up just how I’d fallen asleep. Groggy and limp, I rolled, hitting A.W.’s knees.

He must have already been awake because he stroked a hand over my hair.

Were we really about to do this? Me and him? If we went through with it, I’d be his only for the rest of his life, and he would be mine. 

He whispered, and I looked over and up, “I thought my moms would be out. I can hear them in the kitchen.” I pursed my lips, looking to the door, his hand still in my hair, fingers combing through every which way. 

I sat up, kneeling down beside his top half, asking, head turned his way on the pillow, “Would they hear us?”

He licked his lips and nodded. “Maybe.”

“Then…” I dug my nails into my palms beneath me. “Maybe we need to wait. For them to leave the house at some point.”

He nodded, but I was already so close.

I didn’t even know if it was me or him who leaned in first, still half out of it from my nap. Our foreheads rested together, noses nuzzling, and I could feel the faint heat from his mouth so close to mine. “How do we do this?” I whispered.

“I have no idea,” he returned, and he surged forward, catching me by surprise. My eyes fell shut, everything fell away as we held and pushed and finally pulled back, but I wouldn’t let him stop there. I went after him, giving him little incessant kisses. “What’re you doing?” he chuckled from around me.

“Practice,” I blustered, ears feeling red. 

He hooked a hand behind my head, drew me back with him. Our teeth clashed; we didn’t care. His hands were in my hair, and he pulled me back for a breath by my head. 

I could see a gleam between our mouths from a small trail of saliva, and I remembered with a near gasp that this was not the first time I’d kissed my best friend. “Is this okay?” he rasped.

Under the guise of getting used to this, getting used to him, before I’d give him submission, I nodded, mouthing, “More. Please…” His eyes widened a fraction before going half-lidded, disarming and luring me in further. 

Before I knew it, he was sat up with me, he was turning, pulling me closer, my leg going over his lap, his hip, he pulled me to him, nosing into my neck as I held onto the back of his shirt, panting. His side was warm on the inside of my leg through his shirt, through my pants, and once I got enough air in me, I realized what I’d just said, eyes wide as he mouthed wonders into my skin. He lifted up for a moment, face red, a sloppy grin on his face as he teased, “You ask too nicely.” 

I locked big eyes on him. It took me a moment. I nodded fiercely.

I slammed my hands to either side of his head, and brought him down to me again, kissing him like my life could have depended it, playing with his piercings, pulling him atop me. That’s what I wanted. He posted his hands on either side of my head, but not for long, balancing to run a hand over my knee, opening it up–

Terror pulsed through me, but it was momentary. My pants were still on– even if I felt slick at my entrance seeping out. 

That offending hand of his crept up my hip, and as he growled into my neck, teeth latching on softly as if for practice, it slipped under the bottom of my shirt. I let out a half-breathed curse. He had the nerve to laugh at that and my skin jumped under his fingers. I wiped the side of my mouth with a sleeve, messy, and bucked my hips up to capture his, wrapping my shorter legs around him, bringing him down at least only partly.

It was my mistake. My fucking glorious mistake.

He gasped, his breath catching more than once, fanning in and out. Me? Course I’d been expecting the contact, but not like this with him between my legs. I didn’t know exactly where it came from inside of me, but unlike the muffled sounds I kept in my throat during heats, this one slipped out, too damn powerful for us who were supposed to be being stealthy.

Both our sets of hands scrambled to land over my mouth, my breaths coming in harsh through my nose as I looked up at him. 

What happened next was his fault, though.

He decided to fucking rub himself against me, and if I hadn’t been so damn occupied, I probably would have been offended at the difference in size I could already begin to feel between us. 

He bared his teeth, eyes squeezing shut, and the view… 

He rolled his hips again; our heads rolled back. I was moaning against his palms layered beneath my hands that were falling away. His throat hung before me, drawing me in, but I was too weak to try and reach up for him, fingers curling into my palms on the bed.

He kept pressure between us as he sat back, and the sounds I made damn near ashamed me with how pathetic they were, mewling and whimpering, trying to rub back against him. One of his hands left to flip up my shirt– I looked down to see how my chest and stomach heaved with harsh breaths I suddenly became so self-conscious about, but, catching me from out of the blue, two fingers of his slipped into the corner of my mouth. I turned my head, panting from around them on my tongue, tasting salt, and he did not waste the opportunity to scent me. 

My stomach curled up at the idea that I smelled so much like him now. 

I wanted to make him mine. So many Omegas did not mark their mates in return. I’d known it was something I needed since the topic had been introduced to me. 

I closed my eyes as he nuzzled in at my face, breaths heavy, and I kissed wherever I could get. 

I froze with my mouth on his neck and his head leaned up, eyes shut, as his phone began to buzz in his back pocket of his jeans. 

I felt fuzzy as he pulled back completely, picking it up with, “Yeah, Mom? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay, bye.” 

He raised his eyebrows at me as I leaned back on my arms. “What was that?” I tasted metal instead of salt now.

He stroked at my calf still at his hip. “Sh. Dinner’s gonna be ready soon. That’s all.” I sighed in relief, turning into his pillow, hugging it tight. He cleared his throat, suddenly so awkward it felt like as he patted my hip, mumbling, “Good practice.”

“Mhm.”

Really good… 

I turned to look over my shoulder as he got up, made for the door. “Where’re you going?” came out accusingly from me.

“I– uh… I didn’t know if we–” He was pointing between us, a question on his face. I rolled my eyes, somehow now exasperated now that he wasn’t getting it, and landed my face into his pillow. “Yeah, okay.” He scooted out with, “I’m gonna go– Dinner.”

“Idiot,” I mumbled. 

He’d enjoyed it right? That wasn’t him running away, was it?

Odds were, though if we hadn’t had something stopping us, we would have gone all the way and I would have been screaming and alerting the entire house.

I followed him out, throwing the pillow back on the bed angrily. He was in the bathroom, washing up a little, trying to dampen the pheromones of what we’d just did. 

I glanced down. He was still half hard in his pants.

I leaned against the counter. “I wouldn’t go out there just yet if I were you, dude,” taking another glance so he’d notice.

“Shit,” he hissed. Mm I loved it when he did that. He just splashed himself with more cold water, holding his face in the towel for a good few minutes before exploding up and pushing me against the counter, scenting me roughly, startling me into limp submission for him. “I’m sorry, I can’t help myself.” I wanted to agree, but I’d lost my voice in trying to keep everything in. If I said something now, who knew how it could come out? “It’s weird, I know,” he admitted, rubbing his neck against mine as I lay against the mirror, humming for all I could not say. “You’re my best friend and I–”

I found myself. Enough to pull him back by his head to tell him, trying to be so quiet, “We’re becoming mates tomorrow. Not fake mates, not anything else.  _ Mates _ . Sure our circumstances are weird, but the rules of friendship don’t exactly apply anymore.” I took in a breath, faltering with his eyes so intense on me, his scent fresh on me. “I know what I’m getting into.”

He smiled, brows lowered, “I didn’t even get the chance to court you.”

“This could count, right?”

“No, Milo!”

I giggled. Fucking giggled– That’s how bad it was. 

I looped my arms around his neck, pointing out, “Well, you did try and drive off my other suitors. Week after week. For months.”

“And it worked,” he growled approvingly. I nearly kissed him again, knowing my scent was spiking with that alone. 

“Mhm.” It was all I could manage. I swallowed, found my voice, then pulled back, patting his chest. “You did good.”

For some fucking reason, the guy took it as another sign of friendship and apparently nothing more, pulling back completely. I didn’t know how to tell him any differently. At least… not now. It would all probably be resolved after we were actually mates. It eased the annoyance in my belly to think about that, and I was smiling in watching him go.

He came back with a ‘Fuck,’ and had to wash up all over again to try and get how strong my scent was on him off; I did, too.

To be honest, I’d nearly insisted on today being the day. Last resort was the woods, but I didn’t know how I’d feel about being taken up against a tree. Least not the first time.


	13. Counting on You

We then had to postpone to Friday, when his parents would be out. Thankfully, Lenora joined them at the last minute. We were invited, but I said I didn’t feel like going out. A.W. said he’d decided to stay with me to their faces, and the weight behind the words got to me in all kinds of ways. Because they didn’t know. By the time they got back late tonight, it would be done. And nothing and no one could do anything about it. 

Just like last time, we nearly didn’t know how to start, sitting on the couch, wasting time with a bag of cheetos and TV.

He smelled amazing. His arm was around my back, resting on the back of the couch.

He ended up taking initiative, grumbling as he began pushing me back, “We’re wasting time–”

“Not here!” I insisted.

“My room?” I nodded. “What’s the difference?” God, his scent was so strong it nearly took away my good sense. 

I narrowed my eyes, however, and hopped across the back of the couch, leaving him staring after me in shock and incredulously.

I gave him a look. And then I went.

His pursuit was too fast. I had to keep speeding up.

He ended up tackling me to his bed unceremoniously, asserting that whatever happened, unless I raised my concerns, we were doing this. We were doing this…

I let him, sitting up, pushing my way into his lap as he caught me in his arms. He dragged me into a kiss that had my heart pounding against his, and then, while he scented me over, I went for his ear, feeling him shiver, hearing his breathy little curse that I was waiting to get so much louder. 

He was nearly hesitant as he slipped hands up the back of my shirt. I arced closer to him looking over my shoulder at the hands I couldn’t see. They ran one way, then came down again, and I was gasping too much when he stroked over my sides. Down, down they went. I yelped as they squeezed at my rump, and upon realization that I’d soon be naked, the nerves made me fall into him. He was pulling the two apart and it shouldn’t have felt that good yet, but I could have sworn I was soaked through with slick by that point, sticky on me as he let his hands wander, as he watched me and I tried to watch what he did.

“Are you still sure?” he asked, voice hoarse-sounding at my ear.

I nodded.

He gave one last squeeze, too hard, and I winced, though I couldn’t tell if it was actually painful.

I licked my lips fast as he came at me. He huffed a surprised breath into my mouth to feel my hands under his shirt, this time, pulling it up and up until he finally pulled back to pull it off. 

I’d seen him shirtless plenty of times. This was the first of many times I wouldn’t have to look away out of shame for what I felt. I ran my hands over him, exploring what the muscle felt like, what the skin felt like in different places, drinking in his expression, the sounds in his throat, choked and desperate until he couldn’t take it and did the same for me, laying me back, surprisingly gentle. The sheets almost felt scratchy on my bare back, red with embarrassment, but I soon forgot, nearly bolting up when his mouth hit that bare skin on my front. 

His eyes were flicking up to my own, down to my crotch. 

I winced as he worked some skin between his teeth with a long, pleased groan, and his eyes were alight as he went higher, testing out my scent glands, scraping them over with his teeth. 

My hands found their way back into his hair as he slowly worked his way downward, leaving kisses, hickeys, pulling on me, teasing me, comforting bruised skin with his tongue, his hands behind my hips.

I reached further down for him, trying to bring him back to kiss him, but he took one of my hands, kissing my wrist and saying against it, “Let me take care of you.” I arched back as he palmed me through my pants, as his fingers skirted down to where I was wetting my seat. I covered my mouth from my groans, biting down on my forearm. “There’s no one here, Milo,” he told me, shoulders over my hips. “I’m gonna take this off, okay?” I nodded, wrist covering my mouth more loosely.

I lifted my hips for him, and he did the work, which was good because I didn’t know how much more of this teasing and preparation I could take before I imploded. He slipped off the pants, and the way he looked at the whole of me, though I still had boxers, was enough to choke my breath in my throat, make me squirm under his gaze as warmth coated me from the inside out. He took no time in removing his pants, too, and while he was down there, he did something I didn’t expect. He lifted my legs, and I choked and twitched at how good he looked with my calves over his broad shoulders. Our eyes did not leave each other as he began kissing and scenting up the inside of my leg until I was left begging.

I could see him so big in his pants, and through the haze filling me, I had a moment of panic at the idea of it inside of me. I’d never had anything but my own fingers…

Soon I had his tongue, beginning at the front, lifting me up a bit more, hunching to get to the back.

My legs splayed out further. I was hard up on my stomach.

He groaned along with my own noises, “It’s so good, Milo…” He’d closed his eyes, exploring me outside and in, until he put a finger inside me. “Milo…?”

I nodded. 

He began pumping it in and out and I lost it, gripping the pillow behind me like a vice, spewing moans, hips jerking. And then he touched at how hard I was…

“A.W. I’m gonna–” I groaned, hiding my face in his pillow.

He stopped slowly, let my hips down slowly.

My breath stopped in my lungs as he knelt up and pulled down his boxers, tossing them away. I sent my nails into the pillow, biting my tongue. 

His voice was husky as he looked down at how bare I was, asking, “Ready?”

No. 

_ No.  _

What the  _ hell was  _ that?!

He came back to me, laying himself on top of me, his body slick against mine. I wrapped my arms around him as he comforted me briefly, snuggling into his neck, scenting him fervently as he crooned.

Then I gave him the signal: a simple nod. A look in the eyes. A tilt to my hips, ready to take him on.

“I’ve never done this before, so you gotta tell me if it hurts,” he reminded me. I nodded again, stiff. “Relax,” he breathed as he positioned himself. Okay, yeah, my lower half was limp, but my upper half was clinging to him like a cat to a telephone pole.

I gasped as he sunk into me slowly, all the new sensations zapping through my body, barely getting to enjoy how he groaned helplessly and hyperventilated into my neck. 

I knew he wasn’t all the way in. I couldn’t feel the knot at my base. But still, he stopped like he was.

“All of you,” I panted. “Don’t stop now–”

His head went back as he pushed the rest of the way in, the most shameless sound coming from deep in his chest, and tears formed in my eyes as I had to adjust, nails digging into his back. 

When he began moving I thought I’d lose my soul from my body, alternating between tense and completely limp, crying out with every thrust inside. 

“Does it hurt?” he gritted out, slowing the already slow pace, but not seeming able to stop. It didn’t in the way that I would have expected. It felt way too sensitive, and I couldn’t tell if going faster or slower was better. I couldn’t voice any of it anyway, so out of it with pleasure and adrenaline. He did stop. “Milo?”

“No,” I huffed back. “I– I can’t think–”

He wrapped an arm around the top of my head and I stayed there where it smelled like us as he moved in me, surprised at how our sounds synchronized so quickly with each of his thrusts. 

I threw my head to the side, as if upon instinct, but he still kept going, face squeezed tight and going limp alternately, just like me.

As he raked a hand over my chest, he began to speed up, and I hung onto him even tighter, mouthing up his shoulder as his curses and sentences turned just as incoherent as my own wordless mumbles and cries.

He got faster and faster, and I was reduced to a jumble of static, writhing and moaning.

He warned me, nails digging into my hips, “I’m close… I’m  _ close. _ ” He tugged on my lip with his teeth, grumbling around it, “I’m going to knot you.”

I had nothing but the thought of completion and him in my mind.

And as he popped his knot inside me, giving a few tugging thrusts, I screamed in pain and pleasure, hearing him swear savagely, snarling as he released into me. I snaked my head up. I bit down into his scent gland.

He shouted my name– whether pain or pleasure, I had no idea.

I tasted blood, and screamed into the meat of his neck and shoulder as he reached down to finish me off faster with a spray up my belly, screamed even harder at his teeth puncturing my skin, tethered to him in so many ways.

We were huffing into each others necks. I released, licking blood off my lips like it was nothing more than another part of him to enjoy and consume, prone beneath him. He remained where he was, growling faintly, as constant as his croon could be, until the growl cracked and he let go of my flesh and my own ruptured scent gland. It was primal how he nosed his way into the painfully bleeding bite, scenting, rubbing his own bite to mine in a way I’d never known happened.

When he pulled up, he supported himself with an elbow, wiping some cum off my chin, then kissing me with a bloody mouth, tasting like rapture and claiming. He kissed me again and again, licking blood from my neck and coming back to my mouth over and over. And I was drawn to it, weak as I was right now, drunk on him, my completion, and knowing he’d found his in me, cause I could feel it. 

We used a few different towels: one for blood, one to wipe the cum from my chest, and a heavy duty bath towel once the swelling of his knot went down. He practically sobbed once it was popped out, the pressure changing so suddenly. I squirmed at the feeling of something so foreign and hot spilling out. He was giving me this look I didn’t know what to do with, but I knew he liked it. It was all I could hope for. He pulled me into his arms, checked the bite with a pleased growl, then finally spoke, sounding as wild as he’d just been with his voice so hoarse, “Alright?”

I didn’t have words, but tried so hard, resting my cheek to him, sighing, “Uh-huh.” 

The high gradually calmed, but the feeling of after did not by any means as we held each other, sweat and blood drying slowly as he kept touching me with gentler fingertips and I mussed his hair one way, then the other. 

I kissed the top of his head, saying, “Thank you.” I kept inhaling our mixed scents like I was missing oxygen, the fusion more than I could have ever imagined. 

“No one can take me from you. And no one can take you from me.”

“I’m counting on it,” I purred, running a hand up his bare chest, shivering because I’d just seen it all in action. 

“Are you cold?” He pulled the covers up anyways, hugging me to him, pressing his face into my stomach down below before leaving a gentle kiss there and coming up to face me.

I ran a hand over his cheek, and he leaned into it, brows creased as if he was thinking about something. 

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place here, telling him I loved him, or not. All I could come up with as a happy medium was, “I can’t believe you’re my mate. After all this time…”

“Well you planned it,” he pointed out, leaning on his elbow, looking down at me with undisguised pride and pleasure.

I pulled my boxers back on, and he pulled his jeans back on to go to the kitchen and let the room air out with an open window. He pulled the first aid kit out, and we tended to each other’s mating bites. 

I remembered each part of the promises mates had in store as we did:

An almost supernatural kind of connection to your mate.

Exclusivity with them with certain things: heats, ruts, territory, jealousy, protectiveness.

An optimal pair for starting a family.

Even if it was just us two in the family right now– and would be for a long while– we really had started a family, I supposed, in this partnership.

The need to tell him those few words burned within me as he took such good care of me, but I bit them back, hid them under my own gentleness and my own snark. 

I don’t know why, but he seemed hesitant when he kissed me.

And then he grabbed me for it, and I was in heaven.

He drew a bath for me, seeing as I was pretty sore in the aftermath, even if I hadn’t been in the moment, and after that, I had to sit on an ice pack and felt pretty stupid to be honest.

The scent alone, though it was weaker, would alert them there had been activity. Our scents changing subtly would alert them. And, if those things and the puppy dog eyes we were giving each other didn’t tip them off, the matching bandages surely would.

“Do you think they’ll explode?” I asked as he worked in the kitchen, insisting on making food for me as I sat on an ice pack on the counter– like princess and the fucking pea. 

He took in a deep breath, pushing the leftover chicken to the side. “Not sure. Might take a while for it to calm down, dude.”

I could weather the storm now, that much I was sure of.

I think he was making fajitas? He was using a bunch of leftovers and frying them up in tortillas before sliding a plate my way on the counter and following it. He leaned his elbows on the counter, and we both picked a taquito up with careful fingers. 

“I’ve got pins and needles in my butt,” I whispered, shifting.

He glanced under. “Uh… I guess you can– I dunno not sit on it?”

“No shit,” I laughed, pulling it from out under my seat. I crunched into a bite of food, telling him, “These are good.”

He smiled up at me, explaining, “I do well with leftovers.”

I didn’t think I’d be as hungry as I was, so I was glad he’d made eight, but after my appetite was sated, I grew aware of another one. 

He still smelled like sex, still so heavily like me. I’d taken a bath, but he’d been fixing things up.

After he’d scarfed down the remaining six, I offered, “I’ll clean up so you can shower.”

He nearly protested, but then I gave a pointed look to his chest. His eyes followed to the red raised scratches all over him, and he laughed sheepishly.

“Sure.”

Slipping off the counter, I knew I shouldn’t be this relaxed as I did the dishes. The glowy feeling in me hadn’t gone away just yet, making a small smile remain on my face throughout. 

Back in his room where my luggage was, I pulled on a fresh shirt, careful with the bandage. I frowned as I realized his predicament, and went to the bathroom, knocking on the door, asking, “A.W.? You aren’t getting your bandage wet, are you?”

“Nah, I’m being careful,” he hollered back over the spray.

I nodded, satisfied, and returned to the bedroom, no matter how cold it was from us trying to air out the thick scent and musk in here. I held my elbows, examined his closet. Knowing him, he would have let me wear his stuff even if I wasn’t his mate, but… I rubbed my hands to my face, turning away, kind of mad for even considering it. 

This was a mating of convenience. One that saved me. But I had no idea how he’d set our tone. Right now it seemed like nothing had changed from before. 

Then again, it was only like thirty minutes after.

So I really shouldn’t have balked when he came out of the bathroom to his room with only a towel low on his hips, going for his closet.

There was water dripping from his hair, water droplets streaking down his torso, being caught and sliding down slowly. 

I blustered, hands on my hips, “It’s cold, you idiot! You’re gonna catch a chill!”

“Nah.”

“Nah?!” I crossed my arms, forcing myself to look away as he pulled on some clean sweatpants, “Oh, that’s right– Idiots don’t catch colds, do they?”

He shot me an annoyed smile. 

I knew we were waiting, but to be honest I was getting so sleepy that when we crashed in the nest on the couch to watch some TV, I fell into a doze, head over the back of the couch. It was like weeks of worry were lifted from me and I could unwind in peace and safety now.

Until the garage door began to rumble.

I woke up instantly.

A.W. only sighed, hand gripping the remote as if he couldn’t tell what to do with the show. 

I grabbed a pillow to me as they entered behind us, eyes peeled open wide.

His Alpha mom greeted, “Hey, how was–” before she cut herself off. 

My head was reeling.

The Beta mom walked slowly up to us, eyeing us, finally noticing our bandages, letting out a gruff, “Oh my God… Jenelle, get over here.” A.W. wasn’t saying anything. I couldn’t stop staring at the ground. He finally muted the TV as the three women came in front of us. His Alpha parent had her hands over her mouth. The Beta growled, “Alistair-William, what the  _ fuck  _ have you–”

I cut in, “I asked him to,” slightly frantic under their eyes.

He nodded.

“What possessed you–” She cut herself off this time, hands falling back to her sides as she made the connection, the realization dawning.

Lenora said nothing but a monotone, “Congratulations,” before heading off to her room.

His Alpha mom was pacing in front of the T.V., biting her manicured nails, hostility kept in check. “You know it’s– It’s not smart to mate someone just because you have sex, right? I’m sure there are ways around this– Expensive, lab-grade, but–”

“We planned it,” A.W. asserted. “If we hadn’t mated each other, Milo’s dad would have dragged him back, mated him off to an Alpha he doesn’t know, he wouldn’t have been able to finish school and would be stuck.”

I kept my mouth shut, discomfort rolling off me in waves. 

His Beta mom nearly snarled, “And what do you think McCoy’s gonna do when he finds out his son is mated to an Epsilon, hm?” I recoiled at that, my lip curling. Not him. And it struck me how used to it he was. I looked over at him, not knowing what support I could give in the moment. “A young, financially unstable, still in high school, Epsilon.”

“He’s not gonna be able to do  _ anything _ ,” he growled– actually growled– hand snaking over closer to me on the couch cushions.

His Alpha mom snarled back over her mate’s shoulder wordlessly at the threat her own son posed, and I realized it was up to me to diffuse, sending out enough calming pheromones to cover my own anxieties, practically feeling them blanket the room.

The Beta mom gently pushed her mate back and she in turn resumed pacing.

All I could repeat in my head over and over was: Please don’t hate him.

It was my fault. It was. 

“There’s nothing we can do about it now, Terry,” the Alpha told the Beta. 

The Beta shut her eyes, thinking before reopening them to address us with, “We’re not happy. Milo, your parents will be even less happy from the sound of it. But, as it looks like we’re the only ones who are going to support you, that’s what we’ll do. Milo, welcome to the family. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

I nodded.

The Alpha snarled again wordlessly as she tried to calm herself down, and A.W.’s hackles were raised, an eye on her, growling low and unceasing right back.

“Will you two stop it?!” Terry asked, throwing her hands up.

They did. This seemed normal for them.

I, however, practically melted into the couch behind me at the release of so much tension in the air. I mustered up my courage to say my words, telling Terry quietly, “He’s my best friend.”

She nodded, rubbing the bare back of her neck, running up into her crew cut. 

Jenelle sighed, “You’ll make it work.”

And it really seemed that way until it was twelve thirty at night and I had to mute my phone because of call after call after call.

I lay in A.W.’s bed beside him, looking up at the dark ceiling. He was exhausted, as expected, but me, with my nap under my belt, got all the time to worry in the world. The peace in me was becoming more damn fragile than I’d expected it would this fast. 

In the morning, after an almost sleepless night, I didn’t even want to leave his bedroom, where I knew I’d be safe. He tried to coax me out with the promise of breakfast, of a movie, of us going out to the train car to hash it out, but I didn’t move from the bed.

He ended up bringing breakfast in to me, balancing everything precariously. 

I scolded him lightly with, “You’re gonna spill it all over the bed,” even as I took plates from him.

“You haven’t eaten since last night.” I supposed the instinct was even stronger for him now. I nodded, sighing a thank you, and tucking in as he got dressed right in front of me. “Are you really gonna stay in here all day?” I withheld a nod, sipping my hot chocolate with enough cinnamon to choke a horse, the way I liked it. “He can’t get you, you know,” he told me as he sat on the bed next to me. 

“No one can take us away from each other,” I reminded myself, then I leaned back, dredging up how I felt, trying to put it into words. “I know that, but, still… I want him angry, sure. I want him to know that I’m not his anymore. But I don’t want to be… affected by it.”

He leaned forward, asked to scent with a gentle headbut to my shoulder, and I leaned my neck to the side, turning towards him, putting my mug back on the tray.

I could feel his voice on my throat as he spoke, saying, “I’m your backup. Now more than ever.” He sighed my name and it wrecked my insides, stealing, replacing my appetite. Then he pulled back, glancing to the bandage on the other side of my neck, a hand on my shoulder. “You know if he tried anything, I’d shut it down.”

It was like he continually forgot that he was an Epsilon, supposedly secondary to a Gamma– another rare, but at least accepted, dynamic– beneath an Alpha. Actually, no… It was like he was so aware of it, he’d made sure he’d overcome both. 

I believed him.

I thought he was going to kiss me; I expected feeling his piercings along my tongue and lips any second, ready for him to taste how good he’d made the cocoa. 

But he pulled away instead, raising a finger. “It’s a control thing, right?”

I nodded, only slightly dampered 

“Why don’t we go see them ourselves, hm?”

I nearly spilled my breakfast.

However, after stewing over the proposition, I agreed with it enthusiastically, ready to flaunt my mating mark to my parents, ready to be proud even in the face of their possible disgust. 

I loved him. He loved me enough to do this for me. I had everything I needed.


	14. Mixed Signals

It was eleven o'clock when we bundled up, got ready to go, told Terry where we were headed. 

The only thing she said, looking like she almost might want to scent the both of us to make sure we stayed safe was, “Keep me updated.”

Once we were outside, though, it was A.W. scenting me, my hands holding onto the front of his coat, my eyes closed, my mating mark itching to be scented too, though we both knew that was a terrible idea. I kept my nose to his bandage, though, with him leaned down to me, arms around me.

He pulled back. 

“Ready?” I asked.

“Ready.”

I didn’t think it’d be so weird, so I took his hand to hold as we set off through the snow, and it kind of made me mad that I was flustered about it. 

So when we saw yellow snow, I told him to go eat it.

Of course in the so to say  _ process _ of the banter, he let go of my hand, skirting away from the mention of it. 

“I want donuts,” I declared, brows furrowed. Something sugary sweet to distract from the burning in me. 

“But we just ate, dude,” he pointed out, veering back towards me, hands in his pockets.

“We can get them on the way back or something. Your mom would like that. Get her donuts for after patrol.”

He rolled his eyes, ruffled my hair like he used to, and I snickered, shoulders hunching up. “Only if we can get some glazed this time and not only cinnamon sugar, you weirdo.”

I pushed toward him. “Heyyy, don’t talk to your mate like that.” His eyes got big, as if he’d forgotten for a moment. Then he took a respectful step back. “A.W., I was just kidding.”

He smiled. “I know.”

… So why was he staying so far away like we were courting or something? I had no more authority in my life he could be scared of.

And I was out to prove it. 

It felt wrong to be on my front doorstep as an outsider, and I could only wonder if they’d done anything with my room.

I wasn’t afraid as I rang the doorbell, as he stood behind me, my best friend, my support, going as far as to be my bonded, bitten mate. 

“If I start telling them to get fucked–” I began, but the door opened, cutting me off. Of course it hadn’t taken my mother long to get to the door. She beheld me with floating hands, as if not knowing where to land them as she looked me over, and as the distinct scent of my home hit me like it never had before, unfamiliar, but not foreign, I nearly thought A.W. was going to start scenting me. “Hi, Mom,” I greeted. I refused her hug with my body language. 

Her nervous eyes were skirting from my bandage to A.W.’s, and, fingers to her mouth, she muttered, “So it’s true– My Milo…”

I reared my head back at that. “Can we come in? It’s kind of cold.” She ushered us on in, and I had to ask, “Where’s Dad?” Was he not here?

“He’s um… Sleeping.”

“Can you go wake him up?”

She nodded. I turned to A.W. telling him, “I’m going to go check on my room for a minute– see if they trashed it or anything,” and he nodded in response, almost setting himself up like a guard at the bottom of the stairs. 

Old scents were thick on my tongue, their sweetness outdated. My nest was untouched, my clothes in the hamper still unwashed, everything just how I’d left it, clothes scattered on the bed as I’d had to make a quick decision on what to bring. It made me angry, made me turn my nose up at the sight, but still, I grabbed another duffel and began stuffing things inside. 

As I came down the stairs, I could already smell the clash of scents between the two social-dominant dynamics. 

“So,” my father asked, crossing his arms, “you only came for more  _ stuff. _ ”

“No,” I replied, chewing on the inside of my cheek. A.W. drew me down with his eyes, and I stood a bit to the side of him, on the second step up. “Didn’t want you all to go to the trouble of going to the Gibbs’.”

“Isn’t that considerate?” my father crooned back mockingly, rubbing me the entirely wrong way, sending me off balance emotionally– as he did so often. “Look at you…” He sighed, rubbing a hand over his blond and gray stubble. “This isn’t what we wanted for you– This mistake never would have happened if–”

“It was no mistake,” I contended, shouldering my bag. 

He kept looking between us. My mother had her eyes on him. “Milo, you can’t keep freeloading there. We’ll work something out, but it’s high time you left the Gibbs’.”

“Milo’s welcome to stay as long as he likes,” A.W. corrected, level-headed for now.

My father’s bleary eyes slid his way. “And you, why are you here?” 

He snorted almost mockingly, folding his arms. “I’m his mate. Why wouldn’t I be?”

My father did not growl like I expected. No, he seemed tired… His scent was dampered. Sad, even, as he stood there in his dark red long bathrobe that had seen too many washes in the past and too few recently. How long had it been since he’d changed out of that thing? 

I thought I was feeling compassion for him, sympathy. It unsettled me, something I hadn’t exactly expected. 

He shrugged, looking at me. “So. That’s it then, is it? You stoop that low just to get away from your parents’–”

Compassion gone. “HEY!” I snapped, taking the steps down, going face to face with him as much as I could with my height. “Look who’s talking. You threw me out, Dad!” I looked past him to Mom. “And you! You agreed with him! You didn’t try to stop him or anything!”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. I shouldn’t have– I knew I couldn’t rely on her ever since I was little. 

“Milo, you need to come home,” he insisted, not raising his voice too loud, and it caught me off guard so much that my snarl fell off my face. “You are our  _ son  _ and you belong with the family so long as you’re a minor.” He took a deep breath. “If when you’re an adult and you choose to disregard us, shun us, disown us, that’s fine, but, like I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: You are our responsibility. Not your own. Not your mate’s. Ours. For now.”

It rubbed me the wrong way on the surface, but… I don’t know what I wanted from him but something in me told me this was as close as I was going to get. I took a few defeated steps back, not knowing how to fight this way. Fighting like this was– I’d never been good at it. And even now I felt close to tears. 

He sensed it. He raised me and he sensed it, coming forward to me as my jaw trembled, laying a hand on my head, another on my shoulder. I couldn’t smell A.W. from here near his shoulder as the tears built up in my eyes, wondering if I’d made horrible decisions, if this was all my fault… 

He made to hug me, and something in me jumped into life again, making me stiff with my normal discomfort. “Come home, son.”

“We’ll– We’ll see…”

I backed away, snorting his scent out of my nose, trying to catch A.W.s. Oh, and it was not passive any more.

I practically backed right out of that house, and when my father made to follow, calling my name, A.W. put himself between us so I could get out unhindered.

I was taking deep breaths of the cold air outside as he circled me worriedly, nosing at the side of my head, my ear, whispering things I couldn’t process right now, things I didn’t ever want to, needing to bury them deep down beneath the false calm of a pack of cigarettes.

Instead, what A.W. told me as he led me down the steps by my forearm was, “Come on, let’s go talk about it over donuts, bud.”

I nodded, biting my lip hard. 

We walked into town and bought our dozen before bringing them to the bench outside under the green overhang.

I rolled cinnamon sugar between my fingers as I scarfed down my first donut in silence. I didn’t know if my fingers were shaking because of cold, sugar, or nerves.

I wanted him to scent me. Why hadn’t he? It would have been so like him to do that as soon as we got out of my house. Was it what my father said? 

He opened up the conversation with, “So. You seemed pretty convinced.”

I groaned, dropping my forehead into my free hand. 

“Come on, Milo, I need to know if you feel like going back.”

“I– I don’t know,” I huffed, staring at my shoelaces, at the stains on the concrete. “I want to. I want to, but it’d be bad. It’d be bad, right?”

He sucked air between his teeth. “Your dad looked pretty broken down. Your mom, too. She was acting like she was afraid of me.”

“She was. She does that.” He swallowed, then took a contemplative bite of donut as I looked over at his profile, brows set in thought. “You said I could stay as long as I want?”

“I’d make it happen,” he assured me. “And if need be, I get a job and we get a small place–”

I was waving my hands. “Woah woah! A job!? What about school? What about engineering?!”

He set his furrowed gaze on the ground. “It’s nothing new: I’ve got to provide somehow.”

“No,” I protested. He wasn’t looking at me. Sickness brewed in my belly. “No– You can’t– You can’t do that, A.W.. Not for me.”

Then he looked up, fire in his eyes, anger. “Why not you? Hm? Why not, Milo? You’re my  _ mate  _ so  _ let me _ –”

It was so much easier not to wither under his eyes now that we were mated. I searched for the words clumsily. “We did this so I could– I’d be able to stay in school, have a life. If I take that from you– Then what’s the point? That’s pretty damn selfish of me, then, isn’t it?” I took a savage bite of the next donut. “That’s it. I’m going back.”

“HAH?” he nearly growled.

“He was right. I can’t keep freeloading at your place just because I’m some poor Omega with nowhere else to go!”

“Milo–”

“So let me.”

He took on a different tone, a different scent in a moment’s notice. “You hate it there. You were so scared that it wasn’t good for you, it wasn’t healthy.”

“He can’t do anything to me now,” I mumbled. “I’m mated and I have you and he can’t threaten me with any of that anymore.” I looked up at him. “I’ll be fine.”

He shut his eyes tightly, turning his head away, laughing wryly, “Do you know how hard this is for me to let you do? I can’t stop you you know.”

“I know.” 

I hadn’t wanted to make him mad or sad, I just–

Heartsick, I snuck my hand on top of his. “A.W.?”

He looked over at me. I had nothing to say. But his eyes were damn near everything. He turned fully my way, angling towards me, and snatched up my other hand, too, asking me, “Promise me it’ll be a trial run at first. Promise me you’ll have an easy way to get out.”

I nodded. Somehow I was calmer than him at these prospects. I slipped my hand from his, raised my wrist to the side of his neck, and rubbed it over the scent gland slowly. I pressed my wrist to my cheek.

He glanced around us, then leaned in to scent me properly, for my sake, for his. 

“If you’re going back to live with your parents, then will this count as courting?” he asked, half a joke.

I laughed nervously before I could actually form an answer. “It doesn’t have to be… I– uh… I like it when you’re–” I cleared my throat. “Affectionate.”

A pleasant smile grew over his face, warming me from head to toe, and he leaned in. I was prepared for a kiss, but when I opened my eyes, his were closed, and the tips of our noses were touching. He pulled back wayyyy too quickly for my liking, and replied with that smile, his piercings flashing in the shadow of his mouth, “It feels right, you know?”

“Well I’d hope it would!”

I didn’t think he’d do anything more. We leaned back into our seats, toasting with donuts.

Of course, we were so preoccupied with the logistics of our situation that we barely noticed Hayley coming up. 

“Milo, A.W.,” she greeted. Then her eyes went big, taking everything in: the scents, the bandages. “Oh my God, are you guys mated?”

I was too stunned to reply. A.W. held his silence, looking to me, the fucker, and I finally had to choke out, “Uhhhh– Yeah!”

“Wow, um, congratulations!” she offered, not seeming to know what to do about this predicament she saw in front of here. “You guys make a really good match.” A.W. was nodding, and it pleased my down to my core. She was sniffing around for my heat– I knew it. She thought it was a mistake. I didn’t know what to say. I looked to A.W. for help. Luckily, she beat the both of us to it, asking, “So, like, was it arranged by your parents, or…?”

“By us,” A.W. asserted. “No accident.”

I pursed my lips trying to hide my smile.

She left us with, “Well, good luck to the both of you!” and we watched her go.

I made him scent me again once we were out of town, waiting for kisses that never came. 

It was three days from then that we did it again: had sex. He kissed me then, and I drank up all the contact like I was dying of thirst.

And of course it was the next day I moved back with my parents, fresh bite marks in certain places. It was sad not knowing if we’d do that again, and it almost made me change my mind, almost made me run back to his bedroom and refuse to leave. Something that made it easier was that he was in there as I unpacked my things and his that he’d given me to add to my nest: things that smelled like him, things that smelled like us. His job right now was to scent certain things for me to add to the pile, telling me, “If you ever… Want me over, just call. Or I’ll come pick you up or something.”

For how much he’d enjoyed last night, I would have thought he’d be treating it less like a duty. For how he’d acted, I thought he might at least kiss me goodbye or something. All he did was tell me he’d see me at school tomorrow. 

It felt like we were back to where we were before, which we practically were.

Was he regretting it?

I slept in my nest that night, sleeping easier to pretend he was with me.

It was a blessing I didn’t see my parents that next morning. I wasn’t anxious, per se, but I was definitely grumpy, definitely in some kind of mild A.W. withdrawal– course I wouldn’t tell him that. 

I stepped outside, only to smell him there, and it startled me into looking behind me before I could lock the door, seeing him just as surprised, paused in his steps towards me. “Good morning,” he greeted.

“Morning,” I replied back, locking the door, going down the steps. “How’d’ya sleep?”

“Fine,” he said a bit too quickly. “You?”

“... Not the best. Not used to being back yet.” I really needed to get a noise machine or something to mimic this guy’s snoring because that could put me to sleep in a heartbeat nowadays. “I found out we can have,” I raised my hands for quoting signs, “‘date night’ on Saturdays. And not even date  _ night _ , it’s in the afternoon.”

“Oh?” He didn’t seem to get my disappointment. Wasn’t he supposed to be angry at that? Indignant at least? “I guess we could round up some of the gang and go see a movie or something?”

My jaw nearly dropped. I nearly smacked him. “Goddammit, A.W., that’s not what a date is.” He stopped and I kept walking. 

He hurried to catch up. I was already grumpy. Also he didn’t scent me so what was  _ that  _ about!? I was tired having to initiate things or flat out ask for them. Wasn’t this mating bond thing supposed to come with like, a heightened sense of how your mate’s doing? 

Maybe it was petty how I liked it so much when we got to school how he stuck so close amid the whispers. My neck stung with red, but I kept my head high. 

I finally got what I wanted by the lockers as we had to split for class, him diving forward to me, scenting me quick, telling me, “Don’t fall asleep, bud.”

I flipped him off, good naturedly of course, just for that, and he hurried away laughing because of it.

Also, the way he stuck by me at lunch had me going all kinds of soft around him, practically on his lap as we ate our food, him bracing a hand behind me on the bench, our friends still processing it, it seemed.

If this was all he’d give me, I’d find a way to be satisfied with it for now.


	15. Fucking Admit It

But, after school, Alphas and Betas who didn’t know came sniffing me out, noting how my scent had changed– Now  _ that  _ had riled him up.

And I was perfectly happy to go make out in a wooded area off of school grounds, my knees weak at the prospect of what might happen as I held his head to my neck, gritting my teeth against my sounds. And, in fact, when he nipped at the bandage of the mark, my knees really did give out, sliding me down the trunk of the tree.

“Shit, Milo, you okay?” he asked, offering me a hand up, but I was too out of breath to take it. Instead, he crouched in front of me, and I leaned forward to loop my arms around his neck and lean into him.

It was easy to tell him when I wasn’t looking at his damnably handsome face, “I– umm… I like the way we– I like the way our scents go together, you know?”

He pulled back and my explanations had left me. He still seemed hungry, nosing at me, coming close to my mouth. “How do you mean?”

“Aw, geez, making me explain it–” I huffed. “I dunno, I just– I’ve always liked how they mix. Everyone says yours is messed up and stuff. But mine plays off of that when its with yours. They work so well together…”

He nodded, eyes half-lidded so close to me. Until they opened and I was blinded by that impure blue. “Wait, always?”

My breath caught in my throat. “... Yeah?”

“As in before the mating bond always?”

“...  _ Yeah. _ ” I put my hands on his shoulders to try and steady myself– Really how stupid was this, confessing to your mate. “Why would I have asked you to be my mate if I didn’t like you, you dumbass?”

“Uh, cause you said I was your  _ best friend _ ?”

I hissed, “Well your parents are and were, too, right?” I rolled my eyes, sitting back against the tree, closing my eyes, squeezing them shut so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “Alistair William, I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you since the eighth day you got back to Punxsutawney.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” he asked.

“I thought I was being almost  _ clear _ when I asked you to mate me!” 

“Milo!”

“What?!”

He surged forward and kissed me again, hands to the tree, a smile on his lips I could feel against mine. I was huffing and puffing when he withdrew, but he somehow found the air to tell me, “I love you.”

I shuddered. 

He came in closer, saying it along my neck, along the marks he’d left. “I love you…”

It felt like I couldn’t breathe. “St–”

He trailed fingers across my throat, coming up to the side of my face. “I love you.”

“Then scent me again, you big bully.” As he began, I half sighed, half purred, limp against him, “You don’t do it nearly often enough…”

“Are you kidding me?” he asked incredulously.

“No, I am not!” My face was red as I scented along with him, eyes closed. “Besides, you have to do it even more now that we’re not living together anymore.”

“Who said that was a good idea?” he asked, nibbling on my throat, voice dangerously smooth. “I just didn’t want to hinder you.”

“I gotta go back. Gotta prove that I can.”

He pulled back completely. “If something happens, I’m busting you outta there, and we’re gonna go live in Timbuktu and finish high school there.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” I agreed, breathy, out of it.

The rest of the week was almost bliss, and it would have been had it not been for the fact that I was trying to ‘earn’ my parents’ ‘trust’ back. 

On Saturday, he picked me up, and I took him to resale shops trying to find something for him to commemorate our mating by. Couples did collars, rings, bracelets, necklaces, tattoos, or practically anything nowadays, usually exchanged through ceremonies we’d never even gotten to think of. 

Rosalie’s Resale was off of Main, across from the courthouse. It smelled too much like stale febreeze and old Omega moms.

He held up a huge, gaudy red jacket off the rack, wiggling his eyebrows at me as we came in.

“Don’t you even think about it,” I hissed.

“Hi, Welcome to Rosalie’s!” someone who really didn’t seem like a Rosalie called from the back, and as she came out, I smelled Beta female. I think she was Jenna. “We’ve got a sale going on right now: Twenty percent off anything red.”

A.W. shot me a look. I refused to look at him. “Thanks, we’ll keep that in mind,” he replied before coming back to my side. 

I was already beginning to fret over the idea we might not find anything matching as we went around racks of clothes, taking a small set of stairs to go up to the landing with more, non clothing items like hats and sunglasses and peace signs with Beta symbols imprinted into their metal centers that looked like they were from the ‘70’s. I jumped when he landed a sunhat onto my head, crooning, “Awww, look! It suits you.”

“No, dude! That’s not what we’re here for!” I protested, flipping it back onto its table.

“Come on, have some fun, Punkin.” I could see him from my peripheral, how he ducked at the nickname, a hand over his mouth, holding in bashful laughter, and all I could do was sigh and turn to whack him, my ears red. “I could get a tattoo of your name.”

“Oh, yeah? Where?” I pushed.

“On mah butt.”

“Idiot.”

“Your ears are red.”

“YEAH, no SHIT, Alistair!”

“Oooh only the first name. Is that what you’d tattoo on your butt?”

“Nah, I’d get it somewhere else the sun don’t shine,” I corrected with an evil smile. I grabbed his wrist, dragged him along with me as I perused the bracelets on hooks, picking one up with a frown. “... I don’t like that color of green.”

He peered over my shoulder. “What’re you talking about; you love green.”

“Not this one.” It was too bright. 

“How about something silver?” he suggested, reaching past me to pick up a sparkly thing. 

“A.W., that’s fifty dollars.”

“So? You only get mated once.”

“Matching,” I reminded him, patting his chest as I walked down the line, gathering options in my hands. He ended up going back down the stairs to push some clothes around, and when we met back up about twenty minutes later, he had all sorts of stuff– I couldn’t tell if it was for me or for him.

Judging by how he was acting, looking me over– at least I assumed me– with warmth creeping up on the back of my neck. “We’re going to be needing a dressing room.”

Was I down for canoodling? Yes. Yes, I was.

But first, business.

We sat down on some sofas pushed in the back by the rooms, and I spread out our options on the coffee table, pairing them off the way I imagined us wearing them: Two leather bands, simple with snaps; two metal bracelets, thin chain; A dark beaded bracelet that was too nice to pass up paired with a corded one; two thin brass-looking rings; and a blue ring that felt like some kind of thick glass with one that had a blue stone in it. 

He held up the beaded bracelet to the light; I realized it was blue, too.

“This is nice,” he suggested. “What do you think?”

I couldn’t say anything for a moment as he slipped it on, rolling the beads across his wrist. His eyes were on me, expectant. “I love it.” I fumbled with the match to it. “I, uh– I couldn’t find another one like that, but I thought it’d go with this one?”

I put it on myself, and put my wrist next to his, dissatisfied once I saw them on us, and he picked up on it. 

He picked up the four rings, trying them on each of my fingers on my left hand, asking quietly as he held his wrist close. “Which one do you like the best?”

It was sadly a bit big on my first finger, but the blue glassy, resiny one just did something for me when it was with the bracelet. “This one…” I admitted. “But it’s too big so you’ll–”

He slipped it from my first finger to my thumb, and it fit nicely once it got over the knuckle. “Problem solved.”

“Looks like a belt,” I mumbled, trying to hide a smile.

“Huh?”

“A belt. For my thumb. Look how it pulls it in.”

He hummed a laugh, took my hand in his. “Do you like it?”

I nodded. For some reason, the colors were going together so perfectly.

We kept them on as we brought the clothes into the dressing room. 

He divided up the pile, and something I noticed in mine was that there were a couple of skirt-type things in there. I frowned as I rubbed the fabrics between my fingers. All of them felt the same with the exception of a pair of jeans. I don’t exactly know how he knew, but I chalk it up to the bond when he told me, “I uh… Remembered how the romper felt. I thought you might like something like that.”

I nodded, biting back my smile, and to be honest, it was easier to focus now than when we were unmated. I pulled on the jeans and he tried on a red sweater that was way too big for him, giving him bat flaps big enough to swallow me up in his arms. He kept flapping them as he chased me in the four foot square area. I threw a coat hanger at him. Naturally.

Next, I tried what seemed like a maxi dress, soft blue and white with big wide stripes and wide shoulder straps, unbearably soft to the touch, hanging heavy to just below my calves. “I could definitely make this pajamas,” I said, talking away my bashfulness. “It’d be nice in winter and summer I’m guessing.”

He was squatting on the stool, finger steepled. “Mhm. Perfect for snuggling.”

Just because he said that I decided I’d buy it. 

Then I tried on his XXXL red sweater while he tried on a button down that was too small in the shoulders this time, so it was passed to me, and the sleeves were way too long.

“Hang tight,” I told him, “I’m gonna go see if I can find you something similar in a bigger size.”

“Okay, sure.”

I brought back a different shirt and some shorts for both of us as well as a camo-green gag pair that was soft and short and tied in the front, and when he held them up, he lost use of his tongue. 

“Try them,” I dared, tongue between my teeth.

“Nope. Too… Tiny.” He pushed them to me, insistent. “You. Try them on.”

I hesitated, the back of my neck burning again. He wasn’t looking away, silent. I asked him to turn around, and nearly fell over trying to get into them. They really weren’t as tight as I’d imagined, loose on the thigh, but tight over the hips. I pulled on a t-shirt over, spreading my hands down the fabric after tying the bow at my hips, troubled, thighs suddenly so cold. 

“Okay…”

He wasn’t saying anything as he stared, and I endured it only a few moments before snapping, “Not cool, man– If you wanna make me try on the shorts, then you’ve gotta do it too.”

There was something hungry about him. “Milo, I really,  _ really _ like them.”

My breath hitched in my throat. “O–Oh…?” They weren’t so bad, now were they? 

“Again… Pajamas?”

“Yeah.”

We ended up walking out of there with the ring, the bracelet, my pair of jeans, a sweater for him, a button down for him, and my two ‘pajamas’ before going out to the train yard to our box car.

Pressed up close to him, I suggested jokingly as I fiddled with the plastic rings. “We should have exchanged these.”

He snorted. “Okay, but I already  _ gave _ those to you. You can’t give them back.”

I held up his hand; his fingers were stubby-looking like mine, but fit well with his broader hand as opposed to my small one. “Well that’s why we got a bracelet for you.”

“Mhm.”

“When are we gonna start wearin’ them?” I asked, looking over, still not having let go of his hand.

“That’s the thing: should we have like a… a ceremony type thing?”

I shrugged. “I… I kind of wanted to wear them today.”

He stiffened just a moment. Then he reached forward to get our bag, pulling aside folded tissue paper to get to the tiny parcels at the bottom. He cleared his throat as he unwrapped each, then thought for a moment, looking up to the hole in the roof where light was shining down on us from a cold winter sun. He looked at me. “Milo.”

My eyes were big. “Y–Yeah?”

“You proposed this mating with a flower. I’m now accepting by giving you a ring.” Butterflies beat around in my stomach as he slipped the ring over my thumb. 

I took a shaky breath, picking up the bracelet from his knee. “You’re my best friend, and I’m so glad I fell in love with. You’ve supported me so much and I don’t know–” I took a breath. “I don’t know what I’d do without you A.W. I don’t know if you know…” I began rolling it over his wrist, a shaky smile growing, “How… happy you make me.” I looked up at him, running fingers over that matching bracelet. “You know I love you, right? A lot?”

He nodded, smiling. “I love you, too. Not just because of the mating bond.”

That only made my smile broader as he leaned in, and I met him for a quick kiss before he began ducking to my neck, reminding me, “You said I needed to scent you more.” He accused with the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth, piercings out, “Needy.”

I sighed, arms around his neck, “I sure as hell don’t see you complaining’.”

By now I was familiar with the self-destruction my body loved to pull on me when I was with him. 


	16. Overload

I got my heat in the next two days.

Honestly, it was as if my systems were going on overload because of him, the heats coming so much more frequently, and now more intense. I was a trainwreck as I was shipped off back to my house, A.W. pacing the floors of his house as his sense and his instinct went to war as his corresponding rut descended, and when I was alone, it ashamed me.

This… this really did feel like a step backward: where I was now.

Though I was surrounded by things of his he kept dropping off via his sister, they hadn’t even allowed us to scent, to have a goodbye kiss as we were ripped apart, this being the perfect opportunity for our parents to enforce their law and will. 

I couldn’t be sated by anyone or anything but him, and he by me; everyone knew that. My hormones would have none of it.  _ I’d _ have none of it.

After day three, I had no shame, mostly confined to my room, but venturing out more and more, huge shirts of my mate’s hanging off my shoulders only half buttoned, covering only what needed to be as I sighed my way around the kitchen angrily. Sometimes I was incapacitated by the feelings. Sometimes it brought me to tears. Sometimes he tried to talk me through it on the phone, but that was before he started getting monitored, too. After all, he was in rut along with my heat, triggered more easily by the proximity now that we were mated. It did not make me happy to know that he was suffering along with me, but it made me smug to know that the parents’ plans hadn’t gone according to plan. Now they had two constantly horny– sometimes crying– teenagers to deal with. 

I was slamming plastic bowls down on the counter tops and muttering to myself as I stormed around the kitchen, my mother on the couch flinching with every noise, an eye on her book, an eye on me to make sure I wouldn’t try to make a break for it.

I filled up a bowl for me and a bowl for A.W. out of habit before I realized we were apart, the heat clouding my senses lifted in time for me to feel that heart-wrenching grief. My mother’s brows were creased in confusion as I offered her a bowl of cocoa puffs, sobbing, “Cocoa Puffs?”

“No– No, thank you, sweetheart,” she replied timidly, brushing a hand over my wet face. 

My milk was very salty as I downed both bowls and pushed my face into one of them once it was empty, dramatic enough to think it’d catch all my tears.

She sighed, “Milo, darling, would you rather this or be pregnant right now?”

I didn’t answer, anger flaring. 

Because  _ how dare she _ when she knew  _ exactly  _ what was happening to me. Oh, but that’s right: no birth control. No condoms. That was their stupid excuse for keeping me from my mate, a hypocritical one.

“I’ll take the damn pups,” I growled, scrubbing my face with A.W.’s shirt sleeve before stomping upstairs to pace and whine and rub at my stomach thinking about it with equal parts anxiousness, anticipation, and arousal. 

Because dammit, it felt  _ right. _ So  _ right. _

And curse my mother for mentioning that because that’s exactly what set me on my path that night, pulling on a coat with shaking fingers, not caring about the danger that might face me in this kind of heat. There were bound to be some Alphas and Betas who’d disregard the fact that I was mated and carried some of that Epsilon’s scent with me, but hey, that’s what a one-track mind will do to you.

I didn’t get past the first stop sign before both parents were dragging me back and I was yowling complaints loudly as they kept their own to a minimum. 

It was the fifth fucking day and I got no kind of relief from the pills, just propped up in my nest, rolling my ring on my thumb obsessively, throat hurting from the whining and crying, feeling like I was going insane, not knowing how much more of this I could take.

A.W. was getting more destructive with his own things: He’d broken his bed, he told me. Of course, I had to come back with something along the lines of I hoped he wouldn’t break mine.

He didn’t thank me for the next round of his rut he had to spend before he could get back to texting me. 

And he didn’t thank me for the idea to mate if this was what it had come to.

It hurt to read. It hurt to imagine in it in his ripped apart voice, hoarse as he growled it, desperate, eyes wild and cruel from these long days.

I apologized, then he did, but the damage was done.

I tried to get to him again, tried to go to him to relieve us both, make him take back those words, get him to put some pups in me– then, and only then it seemed at the time, would we be truly satisfied. This time my parents stopped me from taking the car despite the fact I didn’t drive yet; they hid the keys from there on out.

I was snarling into the phone as I told him, “Get over here– I don’t care  _ how _ – You just  _ come here. Got it? _ ”

He was growling, no viable words coming out.

I didn’t know until later what he’d done to be outside my window that evening, pushing over our trash cans to clamber up, to get a grip on the edge of the roof, as I waited at the open window, whining and  _ whining _ because I  _ couldn’t take it _ .

His palms were scraped when he got to me, his wrists, his ankles, but I didn’t care that he was smearing blood and grit on my face as he kissed me before he’d even gotten inside, didn’t even think about it, so focused on swallowing down every bit of him I could get.

No words were exchanged as he ducked inside. We didn’t even shut the window. He pushed me back into my nest roughly, pushing my legs up, his thighs keeping them up, latching his teeth along my mating bite and biting hard. I went limp at the sensation with a keening cry, nails scrabbling at his jacket, getting no traction on the material that swished under my hands, grinding up against him, spastic and strong as his grip on me was. Everything was wordless between us, being exchanged with sound and scent, past any kind of fucking sophistication. 

His bleeding hands were shaking as he lifted my hips up with one, balancing them against the inside of his leg as he tugged down my underwear with the soaked through pad. He groaned deep, ducking his head to them before tossing them aside and coming after me with his tongue as he choked my sounds with his hand down below, rubbing himself all alongside.

I was too immersed in him to hear the commotion from downstairs, but we both froze as the door was flung open, both sets of parents standing stock still.

The tension rushed out of me as A.W. really truly snarled at them, still hovering above me, blood on his mouth from my neck, practically feral at the intrusion, at the threat to him and me. And with the way I was right now, I didn’t care that blood was about to be spilled as he rolled me to my side, situated himself in a second, threw a blanket over my bare hip, and met my father stalking in, teeth bared, scent overwhelming.

“Kenneth!” my mother called.

A.W.’s Alpha mom was surpassing him, same posture same scent, and A.W. kept looking between them as I pushed myself up, only for his mom to round on my dad purposefully, silent. 


	17. Instincts and the Slippery Slope of Want

“Unreasonable,” she muttered. I didn’t know why. She obviously didn’t want us to do it either. A compromise was made, neither of us saying words, refusing to be split apart because of the irrational fear we might never see each other again and tear ourselves apart because of it. So, sure it was awkward being on my heat, still wearing one of his shirts that smelled like sweat and sex, him with his nose buried in it, with both sets of parents in the room, not saying anything, but we made the most of it until words found us again in the form of little whispers to each other they couldn’t hear. We had nothing to say to them. 

“I want you so bad–” he huffed along my ear. “Milo…”

My fingers were in his shirt, legs thrown across his lap, the contact a temptation more than a comfort. Desire was eating me out like a carcass. I buried my face in his neck, breathing him in, my arms around his neck, fingers gripping onto his shirt. “Me, too.”

“I’m so  _ mad. _ ”

“Me, too.”

He ran a hand up my leg, quick enough, but it sent sparks ricocheting in me nonetheless. It seemed rather innocent, so I didn’t know why my father let loose a growl. A.W. returned it with a louder snarl, head snaking forward, jolting me as pleasure curled up in my stomach. I just kept nosing into his throat, eyes closed, enjoying the way it felt. 

He got distracted by the adults’ conversation, then quickly lost interest, meaning I was able to tell him privately, “It felt like I was dying.”

“Right?!” 

“I don’t even know how to– I was so… sad?” How did I tell him it felt like the rendering pain of rejection from a mate? How did I tell him it stole my appetite and sanity even further than a heat normally did? 

He nodded into me, our faces at each other’s necks, eyes closed, and some of that nervous energy from being on him like this faded away as he began crooning to me, rubbing the bridge of his nose along where my neck met shoulder. I stopped biting at the side of my tongue, forgetting the momentary pain. I didn’t notice the room had gone quiet around that croon as I snuggled closer to him, and he helped me along with strong arms. 

All I knew was that I was seriously going to riot if they tried to take my Epsilon, my A.W., away from me.

It was bad the rest of the night. Neither of us could sleep being so close, heat and rut meeting head on, or with one of our parents on shift to chaperone as we sat and whispered and tried to drag our mouths away from skin secretly in the shadows where they couldn’t see. Maybe it was worse than before. Maybe it was better.

The next day, things were settling down, our bodies seeming to realize that even if we were together it wouldn’t be happening. Sadly.

He went home.

And when I saw him three days later, I jumped onto him, arms tight, and though he stumbled and cursed, he caught me, not letting me go as he sat right where he was in the open front door, letting all the cold air in behind me, the snow numbing my nose I tried to get to work on him as we scented each other.

“I missed you,” he said, hoarse.

I sighed against him. “I missed you, too.” It wasn’t natural for mates to be separated like that unwillingly during such a crucial time.

Of course, one of the first things we did was get to business. Took only about two minutes total, but at least there was no tortuous waiting involved. 

He made me snacks and I ate hungrily before we went again, trying to get it out of our systems, trying to find a calm emptiness that just wouldn’t seem to happen. It made me mad we’d missed our window, and maybe I shouldn’t have been.

I told him as much as we sat on the couch, stuffing our faces with three year old kettle corn he’d found at the back of the pantry that had probably come with them from Georgia. “I can’t really stop thinking about what it might’ve been like to… um… spend it with you. My heat. Your rut. That’s what a mating’s gotta be designed for, right?”

He nodded, a defeated sigh coming from him. “I shouldn’t be, but I’m still frustrated.” I patted his broad chest. 

“It would’ve been so worth it…” I murmured. “Pups and all.” Suddenly a blush began to overtake me as he looked down at me in surprise.

“Pups?” he asked almost incredulously.

“What, you don’t want any?” I tried to joke, tried to take away the seriousness.

“Sure I do, man, but you–…” he trailed off and I couldn’t fill in the blank.

“Huh?”

“You’re young for them, you know?  _ I’m  _ young for them but I’m talking, like biologically. Also, you’re male. Doesn’t that mean narrower hips and stuff?”

I pursed my lips, an itch in my muscles, a burn in my veins to rub at my stomach like I actually was pregnant, imagining it so vividly. It kind of made me sick at first, knowing how much I’d swell up: Like a big fucking balloon. And then it made me sick to know that this wasn’t hormones telling me to get a baby in me ASAP. It was Milo enjoying the imaginings. “Yeah. Yeah of course.” I bit my lips shut, the insistent tug towards that future knocking me enough off balance to tack on, “But still.”

There was no not-weird way to tell him I wanted to be pregnant with his pups. I cringed at the thought of telling him. So I kept details to myself, pushing my head into his stomach slowly. 

And the next time we did it, it shouldn’t have made me that frustrated after to know it was an unproductive fuck. What even was that? An ‘unproductive fuck’? I didn’t know how to curb this. It wasn’t my time. I had to try and believe that. … But it didn’t work. 


	18. Give In

It was four days later that another heat hit. Lucky me. Unprecedented me. Everyone was so worried it’d wear down my body, but I didn’t tell them it was my mind being worn down. 

Going into it, I had no more fucks left to give. Absolutely none. I just knew no one was going to keep me from my mate anymore– Hadn’t that been the point? That they wouldn’t be able to keep us apart?

It was time to make good on that promise.

Before my parents could take my phone away, I made a call, late at night while they were sleeping. 

“ _ Honey _ ,” he greeted, voice suspiciously quiet, reined in. He stifled a groan in the back of his throat, and that seemed more normal– But fucking hell, it made me start drooling like a bitch from both ends.

“I don’t give a fuck what they do. Meet me somewhere.”

“ _ Where? _ ” 

I rolled over into my nest, body spasming, stretching and clenching without stimulus. “Anywhere!” I growled; I couldn’t think straight anymore. 

He took a moment. I heard him swallowing. “Behind the trainyard. Meet me there. Now.”

I nodded, whispering, “Okay…”

I ended up having more foresight than I’d planned thanks to my dynamic, creeping downstairs, packing a gym bag full of food and stuffing it full of the water bottles we had in the coat closet, covering my mouth with a hand, trying to keep my nose up away from his shirt on me as my mother gently snored on the couch.

The heat wasn’t helping me, only making me more desperate, and I didn’t know how except by chance that I managed to sneak out, going through one of the windows in the back, hauling my fevered body out into the ice and cold.

I was pretty sure I was limping as I went, or at least walking funny, swaying on the side of the road, trying to ignore the slick between my legs. 

Once I got into the area, I could scent him without seeing him, following its heaviness into the trees.

He had paced a track into the snow. I could see where he’d picked bark from a tree. 

I dropped the bag as he rushed me, sweeping me up into crushing arms, breathing heavily into my neck as I latched my teeth into the collar of his shirt, not really being able to help the incessant whines that were coming from me– my legs were shaking. 

He kissed me, hands brushing over my face, wiping sweat away, pushing my hair up off my forehead, cooling down my temples with his fingertips, surprisingly gentle now of all times. My knees were finally giving out with that, and he braced his stance to support more of my weight. I kept my teeth in his lower lip and he made a sound that was half growl half purr. I could feel him against my hip bone. It made me want to rub onto him. 

I reached a hand down between us, and he gasped softly as I found him straining, tight in his jeans. In retaliation, he raked his hands down my side, over my waist, and grabbed my rear, and I mean  _ grabbed.  _ I moaned, shaky, quavering, eyes going wide as I felt more slick spill out from me in a huge load.

He began scenting me, movements sloppy as he looked over my shoulder to where he tugged and massaged, fingers testing at all the wet spots my pad couldn’t soak up. 

My hands crept up his shirt, and even in the cold, he pulled it off, his rut serving to keep him almost as warm as me. 

I nearly thought he’d rip my collar just like he’d did months ago, but instead, he helped me pull off my own things, letting my coat lay out behind me, and as he let my weight carry me down slowly, I realized the plan.

At least it wasn’t up against the tree. Or in the snow.

Steam was rising from us into the cold night as we continued on our war path with each other, but as he was kissing down my chest, he heaved a curse.

“Wha–? What’s wrong?” I panted.

“I forgot the fucking condoms.”

He dropped his forehead to my chest with a thud, making me cough once, so he put a hand on me to steady me. 

Shit. “I don’t care,” I told him.

“Milo, you can’t say those things when I’m in rut or I’ll really believe–”

“I don’t care,” I pushed. “I want it. Are you okay with it?” He was silent, hands seeming to betray him, still roaming over my body. I lifted his head, drew him up to me to kiss, heaving to him, “A.W., I need it; answer me.”

He was silent for a moment, trying to catch his breath, looking down to my marked over chest. “You’d probably get pregnant.”

Something in my chest kickstarted back to life with that. “Okay,” I agreed, my gaze soft on the top of his head. He snapped his head up. I brushed my hands over his face as his eyes sparked. I urged him, a breath away from his open mouth, “A.W…”

He was struggling, trying to rip himself from me when the only thing he wanted to do was to sink into me, out of words to say, out of ways to protest. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. I didn’t know which way he’d swing. I whispered, trailing fingers over his open mouth, “What’s so bad about having your pups, hm?”

I didn’t have time to jump before he snapped my finger between his front teeth, faster than I could process, but gentle, simply holding it there. Now he wouldn’t look away.

I wanted him to. I  _ wanted him to. _

But right now, I didn’t have the words to beg. Tears came to my eyes. I had to blink them away fast to hide it. 

I really hope that wasn’t what did it, what made him give up any fake control. Because in the next moment, he lost it. 

We were feverish.

He yanked down my pants, tugged down his own with minimal adjusting, and was in me so fast my eyes rolled up into the back of my head and stayed there through the first few groaning thrusts, body frozen until he came down to my open mouth, and suddenly I was limp beneath him. He lifted up, looking at me with something like pride, chest and torso heaving rhythmically as he gripped me, breath shallow, the sounds soaking into me. I began to push back into him, holding his wrists on my waist, face red with how shameless I was.

I sat up, and he stopped so close to my face.

I used him to flip, and he let out a whimpering moan as I moved with him inside me, twisting, getting my knees into the snow so he could go even deeper and deeper. He arced over me, wiping away my trails of drool, stretching it between his fingers as he worked up the pace again.

It was too much. My front fell to my jacket, rubbing along with him driving into me– My mind was clouded over, my body taking matters into its own hands, making its own noises, shuddering its own moans out, bumping up back against him, feeling the stretch and pull of the arch in my back, the pleasure of it making my muscles quiver with his hands on me. I had no thoughts of holding back.

So I didn’t.

And ruined my jacket in the process. 

Apparently he was the one holding back because as soon as he’d realized I came, he doubled the speed, sunk his nails into me, and I didn’t even have time to process as he pounded away–I lifted a shaking hand around to his back, his rear, trying to pull him closer and closer until–

I shuddered all over, mouth stretching wide open as he pushed his knot inside me, cumming immediately, and I nearly thought I could go over again, the way he was filling up my insides going right to my head, making my breaths come out as purrs as I held fast against him as he spent himself. 

He hunched over me, breathing too fast. I could feel his puffs of cold on my sweat-covered back.

He mouthed his way onto my shoulder, the crook of my neck, forcing himself to breathe through his nose.

My knees gave out and we sank. I gasped as I felt him shift deeper. He groaned from around his grit teeth, almost laughing at us. 

My heat was definitely still there, but mellowed in the aftermath of our act. He turned my head towards him, kissing me once, then again, and it was my turn to laugh– or whine, whatever– as I felt him twitch inside me.

I could relive him over and over happily.

He rubbed behind my far ear and I shivered, mouth opening against his smile, and he went in for another opportunity as I slumped further, satisfaction filling me up– literally.

“What the hell did we get ourselves into?” he laughed.

“I dunno, but there’s no harm in doing it again now. And again– And again and–”

“I’m still in you, dumbass!” I wiggled against him, stretching pleasantly at the feel and sound of him when I did that. “Shit, it’s sensitive, Milo…”

“I am, too.” 

He huffed a chuckle at that. It was nice to have some of my mental faculties back, for sure, even if the only thing they were focused on was him rutting into me again. 

Actually, what he did first, when he could pull out, was wrap me in all manner of blankets he’d had stuffed away, and hand me water bottle after water bottle from his own bag. “Looks like we had the same idea,” I murmured with a smile around the bottle. He raised his brows. “Check my bag.”

He saw the Chex Mix. “Sweet.” He ripped into them hungrily, scarfing half the bag while alternating trying to get me to eat more and more. 

I began to trace over his chest and he choked on a mouthful, leaving me to give his back a couple of hard whacks to make sure he wouldn’t die before we got to do it again. 

Cum and slick were leaking out of my backside, warm in contrast to the snow around us. Like a personal hot water bottle up my ass– a little graphic, a little unsettling, but true. 

We did it three times more before we got too cold, and though I was sore, it felt so damn good.

He kept a hand on my ass as we walked, both bags over his shoulders, and I chewed him out jokingly for making me walk so damn funny because I felt so full and so sore. He just kept his head close to mine, giving me a good nuzzle every so often, and to be honest, I thought he’d bend me over one of the mailboxes on our way and take me in the early morning dark yet again. It’s not like I would’ve complained. Maybe I  _ wanted _ to bend over a mailbox, so what the hell?

He walked me to my door.

I was refusing to let go, he was refusing to leave, but it was  _ way _ too cold for us to linger on the porch anymore, softly touching, kisses dying down to embers because we needed to shower and sleep so badly.

I was glad when he made the executive decision to pull me along inside with him. Not like that time I’d only  _ thought _ he’d come in with me.

My mother was still on the sofa, still snoring.

A.W. smiled as I took his hand to pull him upstairs just like so many times before.

He pushed me against my closed bedroom door, a hand on my hip, a hand on my cheek, and began to kiss the life out of me, and even though I wasn’t breathing, body failing me, so exhausted, the feeling of my mate wanting me so badly spurred me on, drawing him closer down to me, my hands on his face, forearms against my biceps.

“We stink,” I panted, eyes half-lidded, unable to breathe normally. 

“No, you smell  _ amazing _ ,” he countered, stuffing his nose into my neck, taking in big breaths, letting out big sighs. “You smell like you and your heat and sex and me, and there’s nothing better.” I almost pushed him away out of embarrassment. “And if you shower, that means we’re going to have to start back at square one.” He was rambling, nuzzling his nose to my cheek as I leaned into him. “Because there’s no chance in hell I’m going to let you stay in this house and not reek of me. ‘Specially not now.”

“Yup. Sounds good.”

“Or, we could save on time, save on  _ water _ , and just get naked together again.” 

“Fuck, A.W.,” I huffed. Doing it here in this place…

But that was what we did anyways. We showered together, helping each other out, teasing, kissing, holding each other as the warm water washed away evidence, only for us to remake it. I was facing him and he was facing me and our arms were around each other, pretty much dozing where we were.

“You tired?” I asked.

“I’m so fucking exhausted,” he huffed into my mop of wet hair, pushing his face down into it regardless.

“Then let’s sleep,” I suggested. “I’m about to fall over.”

“You haven’t eaten enough yet,” he pointed out worriedly. 

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Because someone filled me up?”

He pointed, as if to the very fact, and nodded along. “Okay. Okay, sure.”

He wrapped me in a towel, rubbed off my hair as I leaned against him, blinking slowly in the steam and warmth of the bathroom, rubbing my cheek to his chest, trying to get some of my scent on him, sleepy as I was, and he was crooning for some reason as he tended to me, somehow having more energy.

I reached up, brought his head down to me, eyes closed, and began to scent him properly. He reciprocated with that purring croon, and somehow we ended up in my nest, fingers tracing each other lazily. Exhaustion was dragging me down, but neither of us wanted to sleep, or, rather, couldn’t very easily with our heat and rut still demanding more from us. 

He fell asleep first, surprisingly, his head leaned back into blankets, an arm good and heavy across my torso. I just looked over at him, at his arm over me, wondering whether or not the fullness of my belly and how it slowly leaked out into my pad would take. Was I really going to have pups?

I rubbed at the side of my head, what I wanted conflicting with, again, what I wanted. Wasn’t the whole point of mating A.W. to be able to finish high school and have a shot at college?

Maybe it was stupid of me, but in those moments as I drifted off, I didn’t feel anything except peace, assuring myself I could do both if it was him. Him and me. Just the way it should be.

Of course since the door was locked, the first thing we woke up to was someone banging on it, but I was so tired and so heat-ridden that I didn’t even care.

I think they gave up, smelling who was in here with me, knowing all the damage was done.


	19. Is It a Mistake if I Wanted It?

The first thing I wanted that morning was for him to so to say apply some pressure to my aching, leaking hole. Which, of course he did. And then he did it again, and to be honest, I was so skinny at that point, I could see how swollen my lower abdomen was becoming. The stretch felt good. Everything felt good, falling into place, being exactly where it needed to be. So I was content with letting him be the first one out, wearing his own clothes I’d stolen for my nest. It was my job to sit on my pad and rest up.

He brought me back some breakfast with a grin and bright eyes, telling me, “No one tried to stop me. Your mom even said good morning and asked how you were doing.”

“And what did you say?” 

He flopped down beside me. “That you were sore and tired, but having the best damn orgasms of your–” I hit him before he could finish. “I didn’t actually. But to be honest, they couldn’t hate me any less, now could they?”

“I dunno, maybe,” I tried, rolling over as he began feeding me. It was comical: the focus he had on these little things, giving intense levels of care to his mate. The heat made it easier to tell him, “You’re so good,” as we shared a cup of coffee between us. “I love you so much, you big dingo.”

“Dingo!?”

And then of course, that started another round of activities because I wouldn’t give in, fighting from below effectively.

We were both a little worse for wear when my mother knocked on the door. I lifted my head from his stomach wearily.

It made me frustrated to hear her despairing tone when she asked, “Do you boys have enough water?” She had no right to sound that sad about this.

“Yeah,” I barked back. “We do.”

She left quickly. 

A.W. was rubbing the back of my head to calm me down. I presented my neck for him to scent, hanging onto him, grip relaxed. 

We spent the rest of the day napping and mating and eating and showering together, and to be honest, I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier. The only time I wasn’t happy was when we weren’t together. And it was as stupid as the shit he was taking, I know, for me to care so much about him being gone.

The next day was more of the same. I couldn’t care less about what my parents were doing. 

And the next day. 

Our days and nights had no real patterns to them. We did what we wanted when we wanted, and I couldn’t think of a better way to live.

My heat ended shortly thereafter, and his rut dissipated without much pretense, leaving us even more tired than before.

It probably wasn’t a good idea for us to be out on the couch. But it was just so comfortable with me manning the remote, and his head in my lap to pet and play with as he dozed off during commercial breaks. I liked running my fingers down the lines of his short-shorn hair in the patterns. I liked tapping at his lips until he stuck his tongue out and I could touch the warm metal of his piercings, a contrast to the softness of his tongue I was so familiar with in my mouth. I liked running a hand over his shoulder, tickling as I went and he refused to budge. 

Speaking of refusals, we refused to talk about how we had proceeded with this. I’d really be surprised if I  _ wasn’t  _ pregnant, so that was a good way to get over the customary shock fast. It did surprise me how even though the heat was gone, I still was so invested in the idea of our pups, how welcoming I was of the idea of them. Cause, yeah, sure they might seem like they could ruin my life, but really, I knew there were ways to work through it. So many ways to work through it. I shouldn’t have, because schools are disgusting, but I think I liked the mental image of me carrying around the pups, strapped to my chest and back like a backpack, and A.W. walking us and my bag to every class. I kept all of that to myself. It was what an Omega was supposed to want, right, but… maybe not like this. Maybe this wasn’t that normal.

And who did I have to blame for that but myself?

As I flicked away from a commercial, he turned his face into my stomach, for some reason, biting. I didn’t get hurt or anything, but it was interesting to look down in my surprise and see my mate with his eyes closed and his teeth in my shirt and stomach. He sighed, voice catching on it, rasping, and it sent tingles up my spine. 

“A.W.?”

“Milo.” He brought his head away from my stomach. “I’m sorry. I don’t think we could have done things differently.”

I puffed, “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

He inched forward, resting his chest comfortably on my leg, forehead to the inside of my other leg. I kept a hand on his back.

He reached a slow hand out back to my stomach, palm pressing gently down low.

Did he know? Was that something he could smell? Feel?

I pursed my lips, tried to swallow how much I liked it. It wasn’t my fault– It was only natural. 

The TV caught my attention. A dude was having a meltdown in the middle of a tackle and bait shop somewhere in Alaska. “Oh shit…”

“... Over worms?” A.W. asked, lifting his head a little. I smoothed a hand over the back of his neck habitually, and he settled back down, just as comfortable with a stupid little pleased grumble that made me smile. 

“Maybe they were some good worms; you don’t know.”

“Milo, if you’re making a case for the worms, I swear I’m gonna–” I squeezed at the back of his neck, eyes narrowed teasingly, and he shot an undignified look up at me. … Okay maybe that only worked on Omegas. He snorted, “You know you wouldn’t win this argument anyway.”

I looped my elbow around his neck, getting him in a hold, going in with a savage grin to give him a noogie “Who said we were arguin’, asshole!”

He didn’t hold back at all, tearing free of my grip, meeting me head on, hands gripped to mine, trying to push me back with a laugh that echoed my own. 

He was called home that day just before dinner. It didn’t hurt so much to hug him as we scented, as I watched, my arms wrapped around myself, as he walked off back to his neighborhood.

We texted the next day, but it wasn’t with any kind of itching longing. It was comfortable. I did some laundry. Cussed him out for even joking about him getting his stuff back that was now in my nest. The only way he was getting it back was if he was going to scent it again real good. 

Monday came cold and bright. He asked if he should pick me up. I said I’d meet him at school. 

He seemed anxious to see me, waiting by the front of the building, looking me up and down as I approached before giving me a hug as he pushed off the wall. 

“Have a good night, Pumpkin?” he asked, and as I pulled back, I ran a hand down his arm, stopping to play with the beads at his wrist, and his smile grew to match mine.

“Great night. Very peaceful.”

He slung an arm around my shoulder as we walked on in out of the cold into the stale heat the high school provided, being assaulted with scents. “Good. Cause I’ve gotta complain.” He pulled up his sleeve. “Look what you did to me yesterday, you bully!”

I raised my eyebrows at the barely there scab, mumbling under my breath, “You sure that’s from yesterday, or…”

He rolled his eyes, mouth going flat, ears red, and I laughed and clapped him on the back before tugging on his shoulder to bring his ear down to me. “That’s nothing compared to what’s–”

He was dragged out of my grip before I could finish, Abby declaring, “You’re killing him look at how red he is.”

I folded my arms, amused, as he attempted to rub the red out of his face.

He got me back with a slap n’ grab to my rear before I headed on to first period. 


	20. Barf

I should have been thinking about this long before I actually heard the conversation.

Lacrosse practice had ended, and I’d walked home with my Omegas on the team in the winter’s early dark, only to come in to my mother on the phone with yellow papers scattered around her couch nook, asking with a pencil in hand, “No, can we still include that in the family plan?”

I was a dunce to think it was phone bills. The realization came to me as I lay awake in bed, staring at the slitted shadows on my white ceiling from the open blinds.

Insurance. Those were papers for our insurance company.

Medical insurance.

Health plans.

A growing family.

I felt a bit too soft on my insides when it hit home, though in the next second, I was rolling over, hugging a pillow defensively, angrily, wondering why they thought that I’d stay a part of this family. I rubbed at my forehead… 

I should be grateful for the late support. 

If… If I even was pregnant. 

It was almost the second week since my heat I’d spent with A.W. in rut had ended, and though I had pregnancy tests on hand from the last time everyone thought I was pregnant– I rolled my eyes at the memory– I hadn’t exactly checked…

I swallowed, getting my hands under me, getting up and wobbling my way to the bathroom, hoping I’d have better aim this time.

To be honest, I nearly didn’t do it.

Then, suddenly I was scrolling through the feed on my phone as I waited ten minutes for the test to take, glancing over every so often to see if there was any shadow of a second line, heart beating uncomfortably hard in my chest. 

When time was up, I nearly decided to give it ten more minutes. Because there was nothing. Sure, male Omegas weren’t  _ ultra _ fertile, but, still, it had been the perfect storm, so…

Disappointment flushed through me, and I sighed, holding my elbow, wondering if there was something actually wrong with my anatomy. 

I had to hold up a second.

I smacked the side of my head, shaking it, attempting to get those thoughts out. I should be grateful, thankful that I wasn’t pregnant. I could finish out my youth unhindered.

But it made me upset as I crawled back into my bed, tugging a blanket from my nest to hold onto. 

I think the late night knocked me off my game, because by second period, I was feeling sick and nauseated. 

My mouth tasted foreign and awful as I feverishly twirled my pencil between my fingers, head drooping lower and lower. 

A.W. wouldn’t stop staring at me from where he was beside me. I wanted him to stop, to not draw any more attention to me than my pale face already could get.

My mate inched his chair closer, slipped an arm around the back of my chair. He was anxious. He was firm. “You don’t look so good, buddy.”

I didn’t look at him. “Just a little off today.”

It was true. 

And by the time I actually put my head down on the desk, he was ready to slide out of his seat, crouch by my desk and whisper, “Do you need to go to the nurse?”

I mean, it had to be better than sitting here like this.

I nodded, made to raise my hand, but before I could get the teacher’s attention, A.W. was standing, announcing to her, “I’m going to take Milo down to the nurse’s.”

My limbs felt floppy as he scooped me up, an arm braced under my seat, another one to my upper back so I wouldn’t fall. My arms and legs finally wrapped tight around him once we were outside of the classroom and I could bury my head in his neck, close my eyes, and try to distance myself from the nausea. I didn’t open my eyes as we went down the hall, or as he pushed open the door to the nurse’s with his hip, shielding my knee.

The scent of the nurse’s surprise made my mouth go tight. I encouraged A.W. to put me down, but he hovered over my shoulder as I held onto my elbow to tell the nurse how I felt.

She kept scenting the air. I couldn’t figure out what for.

“Let’s get you a seat, honey,” she told me, waving me over to one of the three chairs by the water cooler. She closed something out on her computer. “I can give you some peptobismol. How’s that?”

I nearly shuddered, but replied softly, “If it’ll make me feel better.”

A.W. was taking off his cap, kneading it nervously between his hands, and I joked to him, looking over with bleary eyes, “Aren’t you s’posed to keep that on on school property?”

He rolled his eyes, an easy smile coming to his face, making me feel a bit better about him. 

I choked down the medicine, gagging, shivering once it was over, gulping down water to get the taste and texture out of my mouth. 

The nurse was asking, “Do you think you ate something?  _ Have  _ you had anything to eat?”

“I had some trail mix…”

She got one of the beds ready for me pulling back the white curtains, and gave me animal crackers in one of those thin plastic cups. 

I sat with my back against the pillows, knees bent up, nibbling at the thick crackers. 

“Thanks for bringing him down. You can go back to class now,” she told A.W.

“Oh, I’m staying,” he replied, mimicking her tone almost mockingly at her assumption of him leaving as he stepped past her to get to my bed, clambering on, kneeling up to pull the curtains as she sighed.

“You don’t have to stay here, A.W.” I told him, holding the cup a bit lower. 

He maneuvered us so he was sitting behind me, arms wrapped around my middle, legs loosely wrapped against mine, and leaned so he scented me so gently, keeping his neck right there. I felt his eyes close against my skin, the lashes fluttering, and felt his croon come through his chest and throat, trying to speak through it to say, “You smell like you really don’t feel good. How focused do you think I’d be if I went back to class?”

I sighed, relaxing further back against him, and he smoothed a hand over my hair, kissing the back of my head. 

He refused to go to third period either, and to be honest, I thought he’d start snarling at our Beta nurse. She finally offered to call my parents, have them come pick me up. It wouldn’t work. My dad was at work, and we only had one car. A.W. tried to offer his parents, but when he texted, both were out, too. 

Lunch came quick, but he still refused to go, holed up in there with me as I dozed and tried to fight the nausea back, feeling it in my head, all the way down to the bottoms of my feet. 

I couldn’t smell who entered the room next, but when the curtains were tugged back, A.W. tightened his limbs around me, lunging forward, and honest to goodness snarled right in Abby’s face, Linus behind her back, eyes wide. 

He cleared his throat, relaxing back, but didn’t apologize.

Abby kept giving him the side eye as she asked, “Heard you weren’t feeling good, McCoy?”

I shook my head, miserable. “Haven’t since… what, second period?”

A.W. nodded. 

Linus kept on sniffing, and it was obvious it was making A.W.’s hackles rise again. I didn’t have the energy to tell him off or push him back, just tucked between his chest and arm. 

A.W. finally said, “I think I’m just going to go ahead and take him home.”

“Huh?”

Abby nodded sympathetically. “I’d lend you the car but I don’t have it today.”

A.W. nodded in thanks.

I got to see the rest of our friends before slipping off of campus, and Declan volunteered himself to help since he had English next. I got to go home on A.W.’s back while Declan carried our backpacks– one on each shoulder.

I whispered in my mate’s ear, “My house or yours?”

“I’d thought yours, but which would you prefer?”

I wanted to tell him neither. I wanted a space that was all our own. Not happening anytime soon. “I guess mine,” I sighed, knowing I had a pre-built nest there. 

I finally threw up once we got home, bolting to the kitchen sink to heave up pink and yellow that made a disgusting splatting sound on the stainless steel, spitting the taste angrily from my mouth as A.W. rubbed my back and crooned.

“Shit, man,” Declan breathed. He took a step to come help, but obviously thought better of it with A.W. guiding me back to the couch. Must have been difficult, being an Alpha seeing your friend in pain and not being able to do anything. I think that’s why he gave A.W. this long sympathetic look, because it must have been worse for him. A.W. gave him a look I didn’t know how to process as I looked between them. The closest thing I could come up with was despair. Regret. Something along those lines.

“Can I do anything?” Declan asked, putting our bags down gently. “I dunno– lift something, clean something…”

I spluttered, “You just don’t wanna go back to school,” jokingly, and they both had these gentle smiles that were strange coming from an Alpha and an Epsilon.

“Yeah, sure,” he huffed, shoving his hands in his pockets. 

He stuck around long enough to sit with me while A.W. cleaned up in the kitchen, holding a bucket dutifully at a distance, ready to spring forward if I barfed again. 

He patted my arm before he left and it was just me and A.W.

I think we both knew the implications. We didn’t talk about it though as he came back to me with pepto pills and water, curling up behind me almost the same way we’d been at school, stroking my head over and over, chin on my shoulder as he flipped through the channels, quietly crooning. 

Once I was feeling well enough to walk about, I lugged myself up the stairs. He didn’t follow, but was posted at the bottom of the stairs like a guard. 

I took a pregnancy test.

Even though I knew what I’d see, my pulse spiked anyway. I leaned against the counter with a little smile, looking down proudly at the faintest little purple line next to the control, nodding to myself, sighing like an idiot. 

I knocked on my slightly bloated middle– from sickness, not the pups– “Fuck y’all.”

I was happy. Miserable, but happy.


End file.
